To your experience, which notes do not blend well together? Give simply your opinion (ex: vanilla + patchouli) and if you have a concrete example (ex: Angel) and why you don't like this blend. I don't want someone to be offensed regarding a perfume he/she likes so please, do not be rude (ex: not using something like "smells like toilet deodorant/cleaner")

Honestly, personally I can't think about any bad association, all can be interesting to blend, just for fun. That's why I would like to know your opinion.

How about chocolate + orange ? [I don't like that combo in foodstuffs either, though it's considered a delicacy by many].

Ditto coffee + orange.


Other than that, an expert nose can create a gorgeous "wedding" between any two other notes I can think of...

What with the pressure to respond to the need for "newness" fragrances, oil companies are always looking for ways to respond.

Look what is happening in the TASTE category which usually "trickles down" to the SMELL category.

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/news/ng.a...ors-superfruits

http://www.cosmeticsbusiness.com/story.asp...de=2464&c=1


For me this question is so personal. Those notes in question may not BLEND for me but they could for you.


sillage

I don't think Gardenia and Amber would make very good bedfellows.

These aren't notes, but I know from experience that Estee and Youth Dew don't blend well together!

very interesting, sill. I am reminded of the "Nouvelle Cuisine" vogue of the 1980's, when they were mixing disparate flavors. Some restaurant in San Antonio was famous for serving pork cutlets with sweet strawberry coulis and whole peppercorns.

I love Haagen-Dazs's flavor "Green Tea" which is somewhat unexpected on the palate... the sweet of the cream mixed with the grassy, smokelike flavor of the tea... weird at first-- then you begin to crave it!

I definitely think LOLITA LEMPICKA was endeavouring to have women think pleasantly of their childhoods when they imbued their fragrance with that "plastic Barbie hair" quality...

There is a "nutty almond" note present in some post-1990 fragrances like COOL WATER (hommes) which I just detest. I've already mentioned here before what effluvium this note reminds me of.

To me, really, sweet cherries is the only good partner for that nutty almond quality.... but that's just MHO.

lavender and tuberose

Citrus and vanilla

Politely disagreeing, a vanilla creamsicle scent is absolutely dreamy in the summer!

I've never heard of any such pairings, but to me, a tuberose-mint combination would be absolutely horrifying.

I love clove and patchouly in a scent... (they're gorgeous in a scent like KL FEMMES or Myrurgia MAJA) but it has been my experience, while mixing various oils, that these two have so much "personality" that, the moment you add even the tiniest amount of either, the whole quality of the fragrance has been altered irrevocably...

Clove and patchouly both "take a fragrance in a whole 'nother direction" when they are included, even slightly.

I think gangrene-and gardenias wouldn't smell so nice....

vanilla and pine! Smelled a perfume oil once with that combo, and oh my goodness, it may as well have been gangrene! Tres horrible!

Oh, I love chocolate and orange! I recently acquired a bottle of Chocolovers, and it smells just like a Terry's Chocolate Orange. Not the dieter's friend, but mmm

My worst taste combination is peppermint and orange, so I image that would smell bad too. And yes, vanilla and pine doesn't sound like a good mix. Peppermint and grass seems like a bad mix too.

Tuberose absolute *has* mint notes in it, though they are sometimes downplayed -- but smell Carnal Flower or Tubéreuse Criminelle to get the effect.

Vanilla and citrus... Shalimar, anyone ? Or many of the classic Guerlains.

Chocolate and orange... Can't say I've smelled it perfumery but chocolate mousse often has orange rind in it, and in France, candied orange rinds coated in black chocolate are a great treat.

Now, it's really a matter of taste, isn't it? Which can't be argued with. Just sayin'...

You beat me to it, carmencanada, although the citrus note in Shalimar is not what attracts me to it.

I personally don't like mint in anything purporting to be a perfume - it turns everything into mouthwash. I agree that vanilla and pine sounds horrendous.

me some dreamsickle (orange/vanilla). Will make orangeade/vanilla ice cream floats, too. Actually, now that I think of it, my post-run shake is orange and vanilla flavored. I knew that sounded familiar - I had it just this morning.

...

Tuberose+anything is really not for me.

Another chocolate/orange scent is the discontinued Fresh Lucia. This was my least favorite of the three Fleurs de Chocolat scents by Fresh, but I don't love chocolate notes anyway.

I think that generally, two notes that have a strong character that needs balancing are not good together. An example would be grapefruit and something similarly astringent like pine. They both need softening, so together they could just be piercing.

Ditto the opposite: vanilla and cardamom. I'm sure there are scents where it works, but I'm going more for the idea - too much sweetness with nothing to tone it gets cloying.

Tropical heavy flowers with something extremely gourmand - ugh. Cloy city.

As a note in perfume chocolate/cocoa is not one I care for , but chocolate with greens/Galbanum is beyond the beyond.

Add me to the pile who adore vanilla with citrus and chocoate/ orange as a food .

Aquatic / Powder. ewww.

mmmm...wet powder. What's not to like???

(ewww)

OH GAG! blech!

Yet aquatic and leather can work...when they seem like they shouldn't. I would not have believed it before smelling S-ex.

Okay, I think this is the um, "winner." My stomach churns just thinking about it.

How about a flourescent-pink fruity melon with a dark dirty patchouli?

How about basil and mint with a powdery musk?

This is hard.......

Chaknow - that sounds a lot like Angel..... (maybe??).... Maybe that's part of why Angel is a love/hate weirdo kind of scent? And then there's something in the top notes that smells almost foresty as well as the cacophony of fruits. (and I like Angel now -- after all that noise, it turns into a very snuggly patch scent on my skin.)

Mint and leather.

Oh wow -- that sounds . . . absolutely atrocious! I'm not a lavender fan, yet I do like tuberose, so the thought of lavender clogging up a perfectly good tuberose makes my head hurt.

Though I'm certain the Deev will shudder to see the words "perfectly" and "good" placed in the same sentence with "tuberose" . . .



I am so with you on this one, Fiordiligi!