What indies are you using today? And we mean everything! Examples of stuff we'd love to hear about:

• Makeup

• Clothes

• Jewelry

• Bath and Body (lotion, soap, shampoo, bath salts, etc.)

• Nail polish

• Perfume

Please feel free to leave mini-reviews and include photos of whatever you're using. We'd love to know your thoughts and see the products too!

This thread repeats daily.

Please follow the following format at the beginning of your comment: If I Like (insert product/brand), I Might Like _______.

You can add additional information to your post to help people narrow down recommendations.

This thread repeats on the 21st of every month.

Arcana released these today! There is a discovery set. Use code HYPNOS for 15% off.

Dreaming of octopus lovers: What's all this salt doing in the bed? Pacific northwest seaweed with pink jasmine, ocean waves, Tahitian vanilla, sparkling white musks, pink salt, and a sliver of hard candy. A sugared floral aquatic with a prominent seaweed note. Limited edition.

Entangled by luminous webs: Can you move at all? An ominous blend of tart rhubarb, sticky frankincense resin, Japanese hinoki wood, patchouli heart, airy musks, and shimmering blonde woods. A dry, tart, resinous atmospheric. Limited edition.

Lost in a sundrenched garden: Have we always been here? A bewitched blend of crisp green apples, dewy roses, our handmade lilac enfleurage, a sheer solar accord, ylang ylang, kewra flowers, and honeydew melon. A bright floral with apple notes. Limited edition. 

Wings brushing quietly across your face: Do you feel that too? An opening of Mexican vanilla, acacia honey, and baked biscuits leads to a mysterious heart of orris root, sandalwood, cashmere, a twist of caramel, and a drop of lemon. An atmospheric gourmand. Limited edition. 

Tiny Fae: A piquant melange of vanilla bean ice cream and tangy limes, with fluttery wings, yuzu fruit, wintergreen, and ylang ylang. A citrusy gourmand. Not sold separately.

From their FB:

>It's with a heavy heart that I announce that Vintner's Reserve will be shutting it's doors. As the sole owner and operator, I am relocating for work, and unfortunately will not have the space to bring the business as well. The shop will be open for orders through June 5th, and all orders will be filled at that time. All collections are available for purchase on the website, and to clear out extra stock, mystery boxes have been discounted an additional 20%. I want to thank you all for a wonderful nine years.

I'm building a small fragrance brand called VIBESSS, focused on perfumes, attars, and rose water products inspired by Kannauj's fragrance heritage.

I'm currently trying to understand what fragrance buyers actually want before scaling.

•What matters most to you when buying a perfume or attar

•longevity,

•scent profile,

•packaging,

•natural ingredients,

• price

What's your usual budget range?

I also have a small Instagram page where I'm documenting the journey and sharing product updates. If you'd like to take a look and share feedback, I'd really appreciate it. No pressure to buy—just looking to learn and improve.

If you'd like to support a bootstrapped founder, feel free to check out my Instagram page and share your honest thoughts on the products, branding, or content.

Even a small interaction helps me understand what people like and helps the page reach more fragrance lovers organically.

Page mentioned in Bio

Please do follow up and interact with Reels

will help my dead page get reach again

Thanks for the Support and Feedback

https://preview.redd.it/qi3vdi34lc2h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=113e99b701b5ea384d0b6e0112e3bec28641655a

https://preview.redd.it/gdpyji34lc2h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=264decdbc909e350987fd68515c91d837c21507c

https://preview.redd.it/y6b5ph34lc2h1.jpg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=663ef93282fe998719b304398fd70a423e84ee0b

made these watercolor sketches while waiting for these to arrive, didnt have the energy to do each sample but i did the ones i was most excited by!! i'll get to the point because there's quite a few. i've been avoiding blind buying and thought these samples would be safe but boy was I wrong about what I thought I wanted...disclaimers -- my scent profile is:

love: powdery, green, aquatic, lactonic, some florals...

hate: white florals, spiciness, super sweet scents

pierrotperfumery:

-the butcher's daughter: it's...just.. not what i expected 💔 it came off as cleaning supplies to me and im not into it at all. i built it up in my head to be florals + salty vibes but it fell short. im a big fan of the show and sadly neither scent came across as "hannibal" themed to me.

-person suit: another letdown 💔 been reading great reviews on this and as a fig lover i was so excited to try this one but i barely smell anything and what i do smell is more green tea than fig. destashing unfortunately. i will still try more pierrot in the future though bc my husband loves *the shire* and it's a beautiful scent.

cardinal scents:

-body double: so fun and interesting! the styrofoam note is very noticeable and i love it haha. this is a fun one to wear around the house, idk that i'd full size but i will be finishing the sample. the new clothes smell and the iris are so pretty, also the warm paper note?? idk how they did it but they nailed it. as an iris lover this is a super fun take on iris.

-familiar spirit: milky sage, lovely!!! it feels therapeutic. i put this sample on when im tidying up around the house. feels like a warm embrace from a fairy spirit. likely would FS, im waiting to see if they come out w new scents bc i remember reading on here that their website had a massive sale followed by a shutdown...

arcana wildcraft:

-grimhildr: way too much rose, it's all i smell. immediately no, even though i love rose 💔i wanted a hint of rose and more fir, moss and greenness.

-daydreams of trees: another letdown, i wanted a fir scent but this came across way too lavendery and the other notes muddied on my skin, can't tell anything apart but the lavender. i like lavender but this is too much. so far not into this house which sucks cause its so popular here..maybe ill try some again at some point.

^(^^my thought process here was that i want a scent that smells like northern california in the winter. or at least a winter forest, not just a manly pine scent but maybe a unisex/leaning feminine take on woodsy scents. i love the balsam fir handsoap from costco and was hoping to find something like that in these two but i chose wrong! the search continues.)

lovesick witchery:

^(waited almost 3 months for this sample set and sadly was ultra disappointed. oils aren't usually my thing but this house has amazing reviews so i wanted to try:)

-bedsheet ghost: i pictured this in my head as a milky cozy scent, sweet but not cloying. i hate it 😞 it's so overwhelmingly sweet and the almond is so syrupy and thick i couldnt even spray it on my skin. it's like a very synthetic almond syrup and that's all i get. (but take this with a grain of salt bc i'm a gourmand hater usually)

-serene queen: i wanted to like it but there's something about the dna of this house that turns their scents bubblegummy to me..i barely smell a floral citrus and then i smell bubblegum.

-ashes of roses: again, whiff of rose and just bubblegum.. 💔

-the libra: nice, not as aquatic as i hoped it be though, feels more like what i put into a humidifier. turned bubblegummy later tho 💔

-peculiar thing: sharp, clean and greeeen. i imagined a milky rice with greenness, kinda like fichi e panna from kyse. sadly this is not my thing, there's something in here that comes across musty. i didn't get much fig, mostly pear and some mustiness.

astrid

-coquette: nOooOooO i wanted to love this so bad. the skin milk note had me so curious but unfortunately on me it's all pistachio. it smells almost like those amazon perfumes (khair pistachio in particular, which I used to like before i got into indie).. just way too sweet and cloying for me.

-rainy garden: so nice! i don't get much rain per se, but the mix of florals is lovely and for once the rose doesn't outshine everyone else. they did a great job balancing these out and adding a bit of rain to it. not full sizing bc it doesn't feel groundbreaking to me, i feel like i could find this in an EDP (my preference) from another house. still finishing the sample bc it's lovely tho 😄

i signed up for the Wild Veil subscription in April, and now i've received two orders (and tried some other samples from swaps)

first off, i absolutely overwhelmingling recommend the subscription. you can choose how many samples you'd like each month, from 1 all the way up to 8. you can cancel at any time, so if circumstances change or you decide it's not for you, you aren't locked into anything. 

with shipping, my subscription (1 sample) is about 20$. i don't keep super close track of orders, but i think i received both within a few weeks of payment. both were 1ml solid samples, which was SO exciting for me because i was really hoping to try solids, and they totally sold me. so, without further ado:

04/26 subscription order

remote viewer- Clear + psychedelic. A cedar trinity (white, Himalayan, and atlas) brushed with vibrant streaks of blood orange. Yellow saffron and amber powder dust over elemi's lemon musk. Accords of fresh citrus, spice + woods.

right off the bat the blood orange is soft but present. there’s maybe lemon or elemi too, but they all blend very well together so i can’t tell. very three-dimensional with just the orange, and not sharp or overpowering. i like it. fresh, sweet and bitter more than sweet and sour. as it warms it gets sweeter and deeper with the woods. somehow the citrus doesn’t fade, it gets jam-sweet. 

this one is pretty simple, and it didnt grow on me so much as i didnt notice it taking over. i just keep reaching for it. i dont smell the wood personally, i dont tend to unless its pretty strong, but it gives the whole scent this deeply comforting background feel and sustains it and sweetens it. i really like this one.

5/5

05/26 subscription order

gretel- Not all gingerbread, licorice, and cinnamon. Black forest cake is more lichen for salt lickin' and mushroom pickin'. A dusting of licorice, spicy-earthy cinnamon bark and cloves on fresh baked bread. Cocoa, ginger and luscious edible heliotrope give way to a wild forest bed of fungi and black conifers. Earthy mushroom (cèpes) encloses the dry down like nightfall in a dark, enchanted forest.

it’s a spiced gourmand that isn’t spic*-y* and isn’t super sweet. the overall impression for me is dense German cake. i primarily smell bread, cinnamon, licorice, cloves, i don’t get mushroom or conifers in the drydown. it gets sweeter, heliotrope i think? sweeter and cleaner, more solidly gingerbread, but its pretty linear for me in the sense that the notes don’t change. it smells very literally like a German fairytale house made of sweets in the woods. i smell this and i can tell the house is structurally sound somehow.

i don’t love gourmands, and i think im going to pass this one along to someone who will definitely love it. but its so interesting i haven’t stopped testing yet, 3-4 tries in.

and the additional swap sample reviews:

annabel sea: Feminine ode to ambergris set in attar and oud. A siren's blood orange echolocation. Chests of labdanum powder and vanilla bob in a tropical bay, the ignorant remnants of a shipwreck. A deep sea bride floating on a mourning tide, a monument of sun-bleached driftwood.

fucking stanky! hooly shit! fresh ocean air, a bit of bubble-blowing solution, salt? salty brine, animal sweet. for me, no vanilla, labdanum, or blood orange. resins start to bloom super slow and far away, but they fail to fully materialize before it fades.

personal 2/5; concept 2/5 (for me it never goes below the waves), 5/5 ocean stank that had absolutely no chemical aftertaste (im pretty sensitive to that one synthetic used in aquatics)

death M: The scorpion winters in fossilized amber. A hollow smell. Incense bones and cool violet butter. Black, brown, white and green. Notes of argan, nuts, shivering herbs, neglected frankincense, frozen beach, fossils, and cold fire. Transformation, change, Major Arcanum of Scorpio.

it smells unbelievably dry. almost a little mint in the background, unfriendly and uninterested in you. dry bone, dust, fossils, idk what it smells like but it is so so dry. it smells like eating a fistful of cold sand in the early morning in november. the frankincense starts to come through a bit and it's cold and adds no warmth. 

on the drydown it makes peace with you, or decides your presence is of no note. it's no longer so dry it pulls moisture from the air to smell. it settles into something dry but a bit more herbal.

personal 3?/5; concept 5/5

this smells like the hollow depression that marked the worst year of my life. NO idea how to put that on a numerical scale but i will be keeping and using this one.

after reading through the website and some other reviews, i was expecting a certain something from Wild Veil, and it absolutely delivered. whether i like a scent or not, every aspect is incredibly three dimensional. every note is complex. they're SO fun to smell. it's like listening to a windchime, and all the different tiny complimentary melodies.

additionally, Hinsman's practice is absolutely incredible. i see a lot of people promote their businesses as sustainable, Wild Veil is stewardship. Hinsman tends the land and plants, grows their own materials, and donates monthly to Abenaki Helping Abenkai, a charity supporting the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki People and other Native communities. it's exactly the type of business i really really want to support.

if you've been on the fence about trying Wild Veil and are considering the subscription as a cheap way to start, i absolutely recommend it. receiving a surprise in the mail has become the highlight of my month. the quality is exquisite, and even if you get something you don't like, it's sure to find a home with someone who loves it.

What indies are you using today? And we mean everything! Examples of stuff we'd love to hear about:

• Makeup

• Clothes

• Jewelry

• Bath and Body (lotion, soap, shampoo, bath salts, etc.)

• Nail polish

• Perfume

Please feel free to leave mini-reviews and include photos of whatever you're using. We'd love to know your thoughts and see the products too!

This thread repeats daily.

Hi all! I’m looking for perfumes with a few different random notes.

First, one that smells like a turquoise wearing Sedona lady - similar to Faraway, Nearby by Poesie which I am going to run out of bc it’s my favorite and want something similar that’s not discontinued.

Then I am also looking for perfumes with notes that kind of smell like B.O.? But not stinky boy’s locker room oniony Italian sandwich BO, more like the BO on your or your boyfriend’s shirt after you’ve worn it a few days in a row without washing and maybe only one deodorant swipe. Like good, healthy BO.

And then I’m also really curious about these stanky sex/genital smelling perfumes I’ve been hearing about, do you have any favorites in that category?

For the Bo and sex category, I’m looking for more scents that lean that way with other notes flowing in and out, I don’t wanna smell like I just had sex in an extremely raunchy way, but maybe like I had sex and my perfume was freshly applied beforehand and then we hung out and I went to work and I keep getting whiffs to remind me. Is that too specific?

Also what are your favorite marine scents?

Preferably I’d like to try from houses who do samples if possible.

Thanks y’all!

Loves: Gourmands, complex gourmands, creamy, lactonic, bakery type scents, sweet but not overly cloying, cozy/comforting scents, some musks

Dislikes: Strong floral/artificial rose/rose forward scents, heavy tobacco, headshop incense/patchouli, overly spicy scents, metallic/sharp, overly citrusy scents(I also can’t do anything with grapefruit as a note)

Free Talk threads repeat Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I'm not much of a gourmand girlie, but I am a ballet girlie, and I fell wildly, passionately in love with Odette Parfum Co and their transparent, gauzy, rococo scents the first time I tried Pas de Chat last August. To my amazement, they quickly became the house with which I've had the very highest hit rate - almost 100% (wow!). With Coup de Coeur they singlehandedly convinced me that I can adore a rose scent, and with four rose-centric perfumes to date (and counting), each one of them so different and so lovely, they've definitely made rose one of their signatures (along with French patisserie, of course!).

(Previous Odette reviews HERE and HERE and HERE.)

When Prima Rose came out earlier this month, it was a blind-buy no-brainer for me, and I'm delighted but not surprised that I love it (though not as much as Coup de Coeur, my rose holy grail). I haven't seen any reviews of this here yet, so I thought I'd drop in some (glowing) thoughts. It's a Limited Edition, but it's still available in 30-mls and 100-mls on the site, and there are several other online sellers besides ordering direct from the house, so if you wanted a sample or 10-ml I think you can still find those elsewhere too, or some are also probably likely to hit the secondhand market soon. (Odette doesn't typically restock Limited Editions, with the exception of Lapinou which sold out in seconds and then after a rapid restock was later added to the Permanent Collection, but they have promised no FOMO ever, and bring back all of their LEs seasonally.)

Notes:
Top: primrose, pink powder
Middle: rose de mai, bonbon au miel, starflower
Base: white musk, rouge paw, orris

It's absolutely gorgeous. Odette really excels with rose. Soft pink rose petals with no hint of green stem, along with a strong powdery note that isn't, thankfully, overwhelmingly baby-powder, with a background of satin ribbons and, unexpectedly, the smallest hint of lemon or maybe raspberry - just the tiniest little brush of fruity brightness. Prima Rose is undeniably a rose powder scent, an innocently delicate one that reminds me of a pale pink blush in a pearlescent compact, and it's just as sheer as I've come to expect from Odette (though also reasonably long-lasting once it dries down to its quieter self, which not all Odettes are). Husband, who typically doesn't like rose notes, says he actually does like the rose here (nice!), but he doesn't love the powderiness. (Which is fine. It won't stop me from wearing and loving it. Though maybe not for date night.) I would say this is closer to Moulin Rose (also powdery, though this lacks the tobacco undertone I get in Moulin Rose) than to Rose Adage (which has a strong fruit-snacky violet note on me), and quite different to the vibrancy I get from the vibrant rose/carnation in Coup de Coeur (which remains my very favorite of the Odette roses, and probably my all-time favorite rose from any house). This is quite similar to Poesie Meg [White and pink roses, soft heliotrope, powdery notes, ambrette seed] though without the heliotrope and with more rose petals, if that helps anyone place it.

Have you tried Prima Rose? What did you think? What's your favorite of the four Odette rose scents?

⭐ Hello IMAM community :) ⭐,

I would love if y'all could help me find perfumes that smell wild and foresty but restrained.

Perhaps something green, woody and camphorous/bracing with a tinge of animalic. Not so much on the sweet side, but sweet+resinous is ok.

Closest thing I have found is Pineward's Brokilän but it doesn't last 😭 (devastating).

EdP/EdT preferred but just know I'm in a hot climate so if it works any format is fine.

Thanks!!