Most people smell like nothing. Or worse, they smell like “clean laundry,” which is just a polite way of saying you’re boring and probably use too many dryer sheets. I don’t want to smell clean. I want to smell like a library that’s currently on fire, or perhaps a very expensive bar where someone just spilled a glass of single-malt scotch on a leather sofa.
The Santal 33 problem
I’m going to start with a take that will probably get me blocked by half the people I know. Santal 33 is the pumpkin spice latte of the fragrance world. If you wear it in 2024, you are a follower. You probably also have one of those “Live, Laugh, Love” signs in your kitchen, even if you claim it’s there ironically. It doesn’t matter that it smells like expensive pickles; it matters that every single person in every single WeWork from London to New York smells exactly the same.
It’s fine. It’s okay to be basic. But don’t pretend you’ve discovered some hidden gem. You’re just wearing the uniform. I refuse to own it. I actually tell my friends to avoid it because I don’t want to be reminded of a mid-tier marketing agency every time they hug me. Total pass.
The spreadsheet phase (and the data to prove it)
I work in operations—mostly boring logistics stuff—so I have a tendency to track things that don’t need tracking. Last year, I spent three months logging the longevity of my top four scents. I wanted to know if the “niche” price tag actually meant anything for my 12-hour workdays.
What I found was that my $280 bottle of Diptyque Tam Dao (the EDP version, obviously) lasted exactly 5 hours and 14 minutes on my skin before it hit the “skin scent” phase where you have to basically shove your nose into your wrist to smell anything. Meanwhile, a cheap $40 bottle of something I found at a pharmacy lasted nearly nine hours. Price is not a proxy for quality in the perfume world. It’s a proxy for how much the brand spent on the bottle design and the influencer campaign.
- Diptyque Tam Dao: 5h 14m
- Le Labo Thé Noir 29: 7h 45m
- Glossier You: 4h 20m
- Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille: 11h 30m (this stuff is nuclear)
Anyway, I realized I was over-spraying. I used to do the whole “spray, delay, and walk away” thing, which is a total lie invented by people who want you to waste product. Now I do exactly 6.2 sprays. Two on the neck, two on the wrists, one on the chest, and a tiny bit on the back of my hair. The 0.2 is just a half-press. It works.
The time I ruined a Hertz Toyota Camry
This is my most embarrassing perfume story. In 2019, I was traveling for a wedding and I packed a full 100ml bottle of Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille in my carry-on. I hadn’t tightened the cap properly. It leaked. Not just a little bit, but about a third of the bottle soaked into the floor mat of my rental car during the drive from the airport.
The smell was staggering. Imagine being trapped inside a giant humidor with a man who eats nothing but vanilla cake. I tried to scrub it out with gas station wet wipes. I failed. When I returned the car, the agent looked at me like I was a bootlegger. I had to pay a $450 “professional cleaning and deodorizing” fee. I still think about that car. Somewhere in Ohio, there is a silver Camry that probably still smells like a rich grandpa’s study. It was a complete disaster, and I felt like an idiot for three days straight.
The actual go-to list
If you actually want to smell interesting, these are the only three you need.
Diptyque Tam Dao (EDP). This is my “I am a serious person who reads books” scent. It’s pure sandalwood. The dry down is like the smell of a heavy velvet curtain in a theater that hasn’t been opened since 1974. It’s dry, woody, and slightly melancholy. I wear it when I have to go into meetings where I need to look like I know what I’m talking about.
Le Labo Thé Noir 29. This is the only Le Labo worth the hype. Forget Santal, forget Rose 31. This smells like black tea and hay and tobacco. It’s moody. What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. It’s not that the scent is bad, it’s that it’s aggressive in a way that makes people notice you’re in the room without you having to say anything. Wearing this makes me feel like a sharp obsidian knife.
Glossier You. I know, I know. It’s the “cool girl” scent from five years ago. I used to think it was trash. I was completely wrong. It’s the only perfume I’ve ever worn that consistently gets people to ask, “What are you wearing?” It smells like nothing in the bottle, but on the skin, it’s salty and warm. It’s the only “clean” scent I tolerate because it doesn’t smell like soap; it smells like a person.
The Jo Malone rant nobody asked for
I refuse to buy Jo Malone. I don’t care that the bottles are pretty or that the Duchess of whatever wears them. It is essentially scented water for people who want to feel rich for twenty minutes before the scent evaporates into thin air.
Spending $160 on a cologne that disappears by the time you’ve walked from your bedroom to the front door is a scam. It’s a scam!
People say, “Oh, but you’re supposed to layer them!” No. If I’m paying that much for a fragrance, it should be able to stand on its own two feet. I shouldn’t have to buy a second $160 bottle just to make the first one work. It’s lazy perfumery and I hate the business model. Just buy a candle if you like the smell that much. At least the candle stays in the room.
Chanel No. 5 is objectively bad
I know people will disagree, but Chanel No. 5 smells like a dusty attic. It’s old. And not “vintage cool” old, but “I haven’t opened this window since the Eisenhower administration” old. We only pretend to like it because of the marketing and the history. If you put that liquid in a plastic bottle and sold it at Target for $10, nobody would touch it. There, I said it.
Anyway, I’m rambling. I guess the point is that perfume is the only thing we wear that is entirely for us. Nobody else really cares what you smell like unless you’re choking them out in an elevator. Most of the time, they won’t even notice. But you notice. You catch a whiff of yourself at 3:00 PM on a Tuesday while you’re staring at a spreadsheet, and for a second, you feel like a slightly cooler version of yourself.
Is that worth $200? I honestly don’t know. Probably not. But I’ll keep buying it anyway.
Just don’t buy the Jo Malone. Seriously.