Today we have our “Recommend Me a Perfume” thread. You can use this space to ask any questions about perfume, including fragrance recommendations.

How does it work:

1. Please post your requests or questions as comments here. You can also use this space to ask any fragrance related questions. To receive recommendations that are better tailored to your tastes, you can include details on what you like and don’t like, your signature perfumes, and your budget. And please let us know how your search goes and what you end up sampling.

2. Then please check the thread to see if there are other requests you can answer. Your responses are really valuable for navigating the big and sometimes confusing world of perfume, so let’s help each other!

To make this thread easier to read, when you reply to someone, please click on the blue “reply” link under their comment.

Photography by Bois de Jasmin: Spring in Brussels

A new fragrance will join Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle in June 2014.  Eau de Magnolia was created by perfumer Carlos Benaïm and is described as a fresh chypre perfume. It is based on a study of magnolia’s aroma by IFF scientist Braja Mookherjee. When analyzing the components that give magnolia its unique fragrance, Benaïm found that it resembled a citrus cologne. Therefore, he composed Eau de Magnolia for both men and women, taking the zesty freshness of the flower as his starting point.

Eau de Magnolia Eau de Parfum includes notes of bergamot, magnolia headspace, vetiver, patchouli, cedarwood, amber, and tree moss. This is Benaïm’s first perfume for the house, but he has already left his fingerprint on the Fleurs Mécaniques collection of home fragrances: Saint des Saints, Rosa Rugosa, Rubrum Lily, Cafe Society and the magnolia based Jurassic Flower.

Eau de Magnolia will be available in June at Frédéric Malle’s boutiques and department store counters. 10 ml/$125, 50 ml/ $175, 100 ml/$225. Via press release

How do you select the right perfume? There are lots of articles out there on this topic, including Bois de Jasmin’s perfume wardrobe series and The Art of Seducing Yourself. In February, French Elle published an interview with perfumer Jean-Christophe Hérault, who shared a few tips. Hérault is the author of Balenciaga Rosabotanica, Comme des Garçons Amazingreen and Chopard Enchanted, and I liked the sensible comments he shared with the magazine. I selected and translated a few excerpts below.

Can you please give us advice on how to select perfume?

The only advice I can give is to take your time. Do not hesitate to try several perfumes to make the right choice. I also suggest you test it on your skin in order to follow the perfume’s progress throughout the day. A perfume should surprise you and develop in a pleasing manner.
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Andy discovers how refreshing and uplifting Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea can be.

Potent is the last word I’d associate with Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea, yet when I first tried it, it felt like a jolt of something refreshing and uplifting. It was very early in my fragrance journey, when I wanted to build a small fragrance wardrobe without spending too much. I can remember picking up a bottle of Green Tea for $10 during a sweltering May heat wave, ravenously ripping the packaging open in my overheated car, and spraying myself liberally. To this day, I still reach for Green Tea whenever I need some immediate relief from the heat, or for no reason at all, because it is both refreshingly simple and pleasantly sparkling.

Elizabeth Arden launched Green Tea in 1999, following dozens of other fragrances (like Tommy Girl and Ck One) in the trendsetting footsteps of Bulgari’s Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert. But in comparison to Thé Vert’s nuanced, misty interpretation of green tea, Elizabeth Arden’s Green Tea, composed by Francis Kurkdjian, smells somewhat one-dimensional. As a result, Green Tea can be considered neither revolutionary nor particularly outstanding in composition, but instead it seems to me a study in technical expertise, of making the most out of a formula that is composed of relatively few ingredients while still smelling complete.

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Does the world need another rose perfume? I’ve posed myself that question on many occasions, as the variety of roses keeps increasing, but I invariably end up saying, yes. Jasmine, orange blossom and tuberose, the so-called white flowers, may seduce me, but rose makes me happy. Light and shimmery or dark and velvety, this blossom in the perfume bottle is my gateway to fantasy. Enter the new rose to tempt me, Ann Gérard Rose Cut.

A jeweler based in Paris, Ann Gérard has already three perfumes to her name, Cuir de Nacre, Perle de Mousse, and Ciel d’Opale. All three were created by Bertrand Duchaufour, the perfumer whose name graces many niche offerings. Rose Cut is also his composition, and in creating it, he and Gérard were inspired by a diamond-cutting technique which gives stones a special radiance.

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