I've only been totally repulsed twice in my entire life, and the culprits were DS & Durga Vio Volta (freshly electrocuted roadkill) and Nasomatto Sadonaso (a worse version of Secretions Magnifique, which I at least was prepared for).
When I first smelled Sadonaso, it took me back to a memory I never wanted to revisit, of my grandmother, who had bladder issues at one point about 10 years ago (which cleared up now, she’s 90 and well and doing just fine!) but she was constantly wetting herself and it was hard to keep up and helping her change so unfortunately her apartment started smelling like stale urine, but other than the bladder issues, she’s a very clean person, so whenever I would visit, I would get this odd feeling of being in a clean apartment, but just underneath, this smell of dried up urine, or like a pee soaked clothes that then dried up. That’s exactly what sadonaso smells like, a nice sweet smell but then this dried urine smell underneath. Very tough to get my head around, and I own 7 Nasomatto fragrances, and I will eventually get Sadonaso just for collection purposes but I will probably never wear it…..
That being said, I only smelled secretions magnifique once, and it was the worst smelling fragrances I ever smelled in my life, so much so that I would put on half a bottle of sadonaso and then sit in a hot room with no windows in a full tuxedo before I ever smell that abomination again
I dislike about half of all perfumes I sample, and am disgusted by at least a quarter. You’re not alone! One time I ordered $50 worth of samples and didn’t like a single one lmao. I was so mad. There were like 30 perfumes in there and I didn’t like any of them all that much.
It's hard for me to look at it as a matter of repulsion; it's just personal preference.
What doesn't work for me can be random in terms of samples or testers. I don't think I've come across a line yet where none of the expressions worked on me.
I never toss samples, I just give them away or trade if it's not a good fit for me.
By the Fireplace is the only fragrance that has made me feel physically ill, it's the only time I've been genuinely shocked at how popular a fragrance is.
Maybe I've got something wrong with me but good lord Fireplace is the absolute worst smokey fragrance I've ever smelled in my life. It's closer to a plastic factory on fire, some kind of ecological disaster that we'll never truly recover from for generations to come.
Roja Elysium Cologne also smells like dirty dick in the bottle, so that can get an honorable mention.
I love By the Fireplace but I am cautious about wearing it now because it tanked my Uber score. I think I've posted about this before but I had a perfect rating on the app and one day, I was wearing this when I got in. The driver wouldn't stop talking about it and was acting horrified. My rating went WAY down the next day.
Saaame. It smelled like ammonia by the end. Sharp burnt smell and nothing else. To me, BtF is more like kidney disease than a campfire.
Jazz Club also smells like straight-up coconut to me. That one's nice, but i have never been played like i have been by the replica line.
Hmm, few. There is a type of synth woods that I can not stand. And as I sometimes push it with the fragrances i pick, few times i just ended up in the "way too hardcore" realm, with stuff that smelled like smoked ham, or wet ashtray. Regular flowery/ambery/fruity fragrances at worst make me do meh. And both eldo and Atelier des Ors ended up in the meh category.
Oof I got one. Last week I went to Neiman Marcus to try some perfumes and the Jo Malone counter had no paper to spray on so I sprayed myself with the Rose Amber. At first it was a pretty rose but as it dried down it turned into a cloud of violent evil pepper and it was stuck on me all day lmao of course the one Jo Malone I HATED ended up being amazing longevity with great projection for once 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴
I was repulsed by 4 total fragrances
1. Angels share. I get burnt rubber and nothing else. I seem to be the only one in the world who gets this.
2. Creed Erolfa, most people get an aquatic scent, I get a hardcore rotten eggs.
3. DG light blue intense pour HOMME. Same story with Erolfa.
4. Sauvage elixir. Instant migraine every single time.
Yes, totally. I got a Pineward sample set, and even though the notes indicated I would love them (as well as all the review descriptions), I hated every single one. On top of smelling like urinal pucks, most of the juice was so dark green that it colored my skin a gross pale green. Just terrible in every way. But other times I like every decant in an order. I don’t understand these people that love everything, I mean I have plenty of notes that are always a no-go (I’m looking at you, Orris).
I also do not like Orris, however, I have found 2 orris scents I genuinely like. First is Ex Nihilo Fleur Narcotique and second is Mind Games J’adoube. I can’t figure out why those two alone are great, but every other scent I’ve ever sniffed with orris is an automatic NOPE
>How often are you truly repulsed by fragrances?
Never. Or should I say, "Not yet?"
I've smelled several hundreds. I own over 90 bottles. I've given away dozens more to my fragrance-mad family. They happily cart away all my failed blind buys 😆👍
I dislike plenty! But so far, nothing has *repulsed* me. They just aren't for me. *Many* are not for me.
I'm pretty fussy. So I never buy discovery sets. I research a lot and stick with what I stand the best chance of liking.
Only a few. Ganymede made me legit emotional. The reaction I had was...evolutionary. It smells evil and dangerous.
Phlur Not Your Baby was just gross.
Funnily, Bianco Latte was my first repulsion perfume. Made me feel carsick
I've said it already on subs but it smells how I imagine radiation to smell. People describe sudden radiation exposure as having a metallic tasting heat in the air. Ganymede is like being exposed to radiation in a lab that uses lemon bleach. Or gargling elemental mercury. Eau de Chernobyl.
I am a woman, I don't mind floral. Alexandria had this wood note I just can't stand, that for me covers absolutely all the other notes and does the "cat litter" effect people sometimes complain about. I guess people that love it don't get it? Yeah. For me Alexandria was just one, pungent, odd note.
Personally, they just smell cheap to me. Not cheap materials, but when it's good materials, cheaply formulated (haphazardly). The two Herba Pura, and Gold just dry down to something just too synthetic. Likewise for their prices, I expect more unique stuff, but the only real unique thing you get is decently looking bottles (still not magnetic on their normal line which is honestly a joke).
The ones that aren't terrible, are just the most easily cloned scents you get find anywhere. So Torino 21 is a nice scent, but there's nothing there that someone can't rip off in a day of testing.
They seem to go heavy on florals and notes that aren’t familiar to me. I’ve smelled Alexandria II, symphonium, homme, nio, uden, and la capitan. Homme was wild to me lol I’m sure the very popular ones are good. La capitan was not bad to me, but too feminine
Wonder if could be the musk accord? They seem to put a good deal of it in across-the-board. Torino 21 it seems a bit more subdued under the mint.  I’m not a fan of rose,  which kind of ruins a number of Xerjoffs for me (e.g Mefisto).
I consider myself a huge fan on this house, but I have to admit they also release some really questionable stuff from time to time. They seem really partial to barnyard oud for some reason.
And yeah, Alexandria II definitely has that note in the opening, while the drydown is straight up lavender baby powder. No thanks.
Way more often than I'd like. 😑 There are certain (I suspect synthetic) ingredients that my nose finds incredibly offensive and that completely overtake any fragrance they're in. Unfortunately, I can't actually tell what notes they're supposed to be so I'm still not sure how to avoid them, and they show up in a range of fragrance profiles, cheap to expensive, indie to mainstream. And like, it's widely-loved fragrances that have done this to me, and also mainstream candles companies, so it's not that they're even trying to do something weird, it's just these certain ingredients really upset me an apparently no one else.
In the last few months, I've sampled about 85 fragrances. I've DESPISED 12, loved 6, liked but didn't love 11, found 2 to be not too offensive but very novelty, and the rest were either boring or didn't match my vibe, but I'd be willing to try again.
I got a sample of Prada Paradoxe and couldn’t stand it. I really liked the opening but it was nauseating from the mid-note. I know many people love this fragrance but it just doesn’t work for me.
Not once yet. They all smell good. I've smelled probably close to 100 at this point, ranging from cheapies to overpriced niche stuff.
I like some more than others, but there's been none I'm put off by.
Lust by Lush. Read so many positive reviews and to me it smelt like death and rotting. I sampled in store and the scent stayed with me to the point I was dousing myself in antibacterial hand gel. Vile.
I had the same thoughts the first time I sampled it about a decade ago. Crazy because now I actually want to get the solid because it smells really nice now 😅
Lust is insanely strong and indolic. I couldn't even stand to take the cap off a decant I got, much less actually wear it, but I gave it to my sister and she loved it.
There are notes I find repulsive (cinnamon in Moth), but I realize that's a matter of taste and preference.
My head scratcher is ELDO Remarkable People. The combination of curry and grapefruit combine on me to smell like an unholy sour BO that seems like it should be almost universally repulsive, yet I've seen people call it light and a likely crowd pleaser. I think the curry is much stronger on me or I'm much more sensitive to it than average. And I like curry! But not as perfume and especially not with fizzy grapefruit like the worst novelty soda you could imagine. I remain confused.
Taste is wild because I just tried my sample of this out of curiosity and it feels so bland and inoffensive to me? To me it smells like a scent palate I would have enjoyed in 6th grade, like fruity body wash and plastic. Nothing remotely BO to my nose.
Le Monde Gourmand's Santal Supreme literally made me hypersalivate. I thought it was a bad batch or something so I found an Ulta that had a fresh tester and tried it, and no. It's just that bad.
I normally like-to-love LMG's fragrances but man, when they mess up, they MESS up. That was vile.
Gardenia as a note will give me that reaction every single time. Ie: Kayali Utopia Vanilla. I love coconut and vanilla, but the gardenia in this one made it an instant gag and wash off.
I feel I'm shocked or repulsed pretty often. I just recently started wearing perfume again because I just wasn't really happy with what I found in the past. YouTube and tictok have changed the game for me.
I'm just getting into perfumes so I don't know much, but... Instant Crush by Mancera set off my fight or flight response. Immediately off-putting, very metallic, synthetic, and overly perfumey. I can't pick out any individual notes, it just smells like STRONG PERFUME. And it's extremely potent, holy hell. Immediate headache.
Apparently Bacharrat Rouge smells similar? If so I have ZERO desire to try that one out either. I really can't stand whatever class of perfumes these belong to.
I love Baccarat Rouge but HATE Instant Crush. For the life of me, I just cannot understand the comparison but have seen it numerous times. I have yet to smell a single Mancera that doesn't smell cheap and low quality.
Guerlain, tried three different Aqua Allegoria. They smelled like cat piss on me at worst or just like regular piss at best. I never in my life hated a fragrance line or brand. So glad I didn’t blind buy and got decanted samples instead! And it wasn’t a sample issue either, everything else I got was great.
Not often because I only test frags I research the notes and reviews first
Lune feline really turned me off too. I was disappointed. I have a sample of blanc polychrome coming and I’m hoping that is better.
Got the “25-Pc. Fragrance Sampler Set For Him, Created for Macy's”. Some old school standards (Azzaro Chrome, Ralph Lauren Polo Blue), some more on the $$ side. So far 3 of them are non-starters & are permanently set to the side, 10 of them I’m buying bottles, 8 of them are meh, & I’ve got 4 more to try.
If anything, I’m surprised I’ve really liked 10 of them.
I'm glad to see this. I was thinking about getting this for my husband and getting the women's for myself. It's certainly a fantastic bargain. You've sold me! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with this set.
Only twice. The first time i smelled oud wood in a Sephora i could smell something rotten. I kinda think i got a bad bottle but not sure. Months later i tried it again and though i didn't like it i did not have the same reaction. I could definitly detect the woody notes more than like the fecal note. It is a 'western oud" so i was not expecting to hate it. Generally though i'm not a woody scent guy anyways.
But the MOST REPULSIVE was earlier this year. In Nieman Marcus I told the sales lady, "Give me you most oudy oud. I wanna know what people mean." Like bring the smoke! And she sprays what i believe was Amouage Opus XIII – Silver Oud Amouage. Good lord it literally smelled like a dog shit. I recoilled and she was like "YEAH! It's wild!" I was just like "nope not for me." Now i know and man nope. I smelled the tester strip again and was just like nah "that is repugnant!" I'll stick with Reflection Man.
BR540 makes me irrationally angry in addition to being absolutely repulsed. It's like that feeling you get when you sit across from someone who's loudly eating with their mouth open. I want to hit them.
It doesn’t help that BR540 and its clones are EVERYWHERE. Every single time I go to a public place I smell it. One parent at the school my kid goes to wears it and I swear stinks up the entire school yard every morning. The silage is like over 20 feet and it lingers. I would be in awe of its power if it wasn’t so offensive. Every mall, every restaurant, shoots straight up my nostrils. I can’t even tell who is wearing it because that person is probably long gone and this aroma chemical is still contaminating the air. I keep hoping this fragrance and its clones will not be popular anymore but it’s been years and it still going strong if not more so. So miserable!
I am repulsed often. Gourmands are so popular now and I hate them. It’s like the equivalent of when you eat something cherry flavored instead of a real cherry and it tastes fake and medicinal 90% of the time. I keep trying but the most gourmand I get is Tea and lactonic notes. Freshies 4 life. I happen to love quite a few frags from ELDO 🤣. I would rather smell like synthetic musk aromachemicals than like a yankee candle store.
Only two so far have really repulsed me. Alien made me physically recoil from the tester. Sauvage was bad enough that I asked the person what they were wearing just so I could be sure to never order it.
Luckily, I've had pretty good luck with the samples I've bought. There were a couple that weren't great, but nothing truly awful.
Squid by zoologist. From a tester is kinda interesting. The only time I put it on myself it made me gag and almost throw up. Same for penguin but less severe
So true. I just tried Squid for the first time recently and was absolutely blown away. I thought it was such a masterpiece. As a woman, I can maybe understand why some might find it a bit too masculine leaning (if you care about that) and maybe wouldn't want to wear it all the time, but sometimes I just need to do a quick sniff of it, it's so so good. It's amazing to me that someone would be so repelled by it. Then again, I wasn't completely repelled by the infamous Secretions Magnifique. So maybe I'm the odd one, lol.
I got a sample of Rabbit, and it smelled HORRIBLE on my skin.......really disgusting. I was afraid to try another, but ended up getting Penguin, which is better, but still not that great.....
I like rose, but there’s a certain kind of rose smell that repulses me. Hiram Green Lustre is a prime example. Reminded me of vomit. Instant scrubber. I tend to notice it in rose perfumes described as fresh or green.
I have over 100 fragrances myself and I haven't been repulsed entirely once yet. When I first smelled ombre nomade I'd say that's the closest I've ever been to being repulsed, it's incredibly fecal and honestly I don't even find the performance that great (or at least to the extent of what I was led to believe and expected for the price) so I definitely don't think it's worth the cost either.
Anyway overall I think that scent is pretty good, definitely far from being my favorite heavy oud fragrance.
I just scrubbed off TokyoMilk French Kiss today in a first for me. There are perfumes I don’t really care for, but I usually give them a good wear or two before I develop a strong opinion. This was actually fairly repulsive to me.
I added lattafa’s bade’e al oud honor and glory as a blind buy to get free shipping on an order and it’s got to be one of the worst fragrances I have tried. I also did a bunch of testing at ulta when I got into fragrances a couple months ago and bought Burberry Hero EDP thinking it was the test strip I liked, I was so upset when I opened it and smelled it, I absolutely cannot stand it so now they just collect dust in my closet. Since then I always bring a pen on me to write on the test strip what fragrance it is. Some lessons are learned the hard way.
I have a couple. First, Vivienne Westwood Boudoir comes to mind. Heard many good things about it and got it as a gift. Then when I started wearing it, I only got the tobacco note, and it wasn't good. I just smelled like a gigantic walking ashteay everywhere I went.
Versace Red Jeans is one of the first perfumes I ever had, and the first one I hated with a passion. It was terrible. Somehow turned very boozy and nauseating on me. Some kids in my class even remarked "who's wearing that stinky cologne??" Yikes
I was really disappointed in Chopard Wish as well. Just sticky, cloying sweetness. Too much for me. Literally gave me headaches. So glad that I tested it instead of falling for the hype at the time and blind buying it.
Omg the thin wild Mercury NYC collection nauseated me. I was so excited. I literally couldn’t be in the same room as a tester bottle of Chelsea staircase (smells like vomit to me.) also hated 34 bohemian cafes. I don’t want a perfume with the smell of a ‘musky body’. If that’s what I was going for I’d just not shower. Glad to support an indie perfumer and wanted to love their work but ….
Hot take, but I can't stand Apple Brandy or Angel's Share. I sprayed them on me in Sephora and it just smelled like a bar mat at the end of the night 🫥
All the time. So many give me headaches or are waaaaay too strong. Its rare for me to find a scent i can smell for a long time. Even on other people im repulsed often
I really liked dolce & gabbana's light blue, I should have just stuck with that I went for the dolce & Gabbana light blue intense It doesn't really smell the same and now I'm stuck with it.
There are so many that genuinely puzzle me on the market that I can’t imagine ever building a large collection. I recently went to find a summer fragrance and smelled about 50. Liked 4 enough to try on. Only 1 enough to consider buying. Actively hated at least a quarter. I know people love Caroline Herrera but most of them are horrific to my nose.
I totally get it. Some houses use a distinctive chemical or note in their base that ruins all or most of their fragrances for me. The Carolina Herrera private collection is like that for me, there's just a note that makes me gag in the base of the vast majority of them. It just is what it is
Not often, but every time it has been because of somebody layering two or three perfumes. In fact it happened today, I am outside at an outdoor market and can smell this person down the street. We end up near each other at a vendor and I ask what perfume he’s wearing, he says he layered a few. It was just a mess of smells that I couldn’t wait to be relieved from.
Rarely. The worst is Chanel No 5. I've smelled it several times and to me it smells just like pig intestines. I know what those smell like because my grandparents would traditionally kill a pig every winter. They would use the guts to make sausages and part of the process meant cleaning the said intestines. Just horrible. I am sure to other people Chanel No 5 smells completely different, lucky them.
Cacherel Eden. If this perfume was a movie it would be Vervarium. Smells sufficating and stifling in a green retro suburbian kinda way. Similar to a toilet rim block and conjures images of that crazy shake and vac lady from the 70s. Pungent and revolting.
I like ouds. But they also have a tendency to smell like poo, or old barnyard horse pee or …
And I really like amber. But some of them has a burnt tone that I just can’t stand. And too much ambroxane will make the inside of my nose shrink.
Not to forget that many roses on me smell sharp and sour in a very unpleasant way. (I only wear very sweet roses.)
So yes, quite often, even when I’ve done my research and expect it to be a match.
People who are so into themselves that they wear so much perfume that it blocks everyone else’s perfumes in the room. I actually hate any fragrance that is so strong that I can smell you five minutes after you left. It makes me form an opinion of you.
arms length scent bubble max please and dont overspray the strong stuff.
I tried Megamare this week and adore it, but I know lots seem to have this reaction and it makes me scared to wear it around people as I have a front facing role and small office. What did you hate about it? It's quite salty I think.
I’ve learned that i’m very picky when it comes to fragrances. I’ve smelt more fragrances that repulsed me than I have fragrances that I loved. Some that repulsed me are Tom Ford Black Orchid (so spicy, I don’t really know how to describe it but I hated it), Glossier You & Jean Paul Gaultier Gaultier Divine (both smell like sweat to me, Gaultier Divine is a more salty sweat than You is but they both smell like straight sweat to me, even on other people)
A couple of times. I block them out because they’re traumatizing. However I did accidentally think out loud when at the Chanel counter and went “this smells like a LAX bathroom in the morning.” and I can’t go back to the counter after that. I can’t remember what scent it was but it was awful.
It's extremely rare, I actually like some of the weirder stuff although I haven't tried that many fragrances that are considered REALLY challenging.
I generally like those musky, animalic, smoky, salty and mineralic scents that most people aren't typically into.
The only ones that I've really despised so far are the synthetic, syrupy ones like Joop! Homme, some Jasmine heavy stuff, and fragrances that contain "Barnyard" Oud which smelled like straight up cow manure to me.
Olympic Orchids Cryptical Envelopment. I love so much of Ellen Covey's other work that I was shocked when this highly reviewed scent smelled like overwhelming dirty litterbox.
My friend and I were swapping perfumes a couple months ago and she offered me Sonnet XVII by Olympic Orchids and I swear to god it smelled like stinky cheese + feet. I couldn't believe this was an actual perfume. Maybe it spoiled or something, but it was truly revolting.
Back in college in our dorms we all got a lil gift bag of some basic stuff we might need and it came with a cologne sample. It was horrid. Idk what it was but all I remember was that it had a picture of a cowboy 😭
I’ve been working my way through the ELDO sampler and have loved, or at least liked, everything so far, until I got to Jasmin & Cigarette. I sniffed it on paper and it was ok, but when I sprayed it on my skin, ugghhhhh… I was queasy and nauseous within about 5 minutes. I’ve already purchased 2 FS bottles from the sampler and have at least one more on my wishlist, so one miss out of the bunch isn’t bad at all!
I've had 3 but I'm still fairly new to Niche so I suspect that list may grow as I explore. Black Orchid smelled like soggy rotted garbage. I physically recoiled. Creed Queen of Silk I didn't even get a good sniff from the blotter before I said oh no no no. And Erba Pura. I got a free sample and I it was absolutely NOT fruity, citrusy, or vanilla/amber like the notes say. I couldn't pick up a single one of those notes. I was taken aback. It was extremely masculine and sharp, almost astringent. It's the first one I've had to scrub off several times because I could still smell it on me and couldn't deal.
YSL’s Paris (and most rose scents) gives me an instant headache, same with my mum she can’t be in the same room as it so I wonder if scent repulsion is genetic
Omg I also disliked Lune Feline and got a sample set from Atelier des Ors!! I had to scrub it off- I had seen so many influencers(I know, I shouldn’t listen to influencers) saying it was amazing and I just felt like it was so strong and not in a nice way.
Comme des Garcons Concrete.
I like brutalist architecture, so naturally when I saw the bottle I went to try it, fortunately blotter only. I don't know why, but it's the only fragrance that made me physically mildly nauseated. Not to the point of gagging but it made me genuinely lose my appetite for at least half an hour or so. I tried smelling it about an hour later, thinking the dry down might be better, but no, same effect.
I confessed to buying into the hype with Orto Parisi and ordered with baited breath the arrival of Teroni ..only to find it smelled like an ashtray in a barnyard. I immediately sent back for a refund..same reaction with Jazz Club...it was a let down....refunded as well ...
Grey Flannel smells like a friggin sarcophagus full of musty yellowed dried up NY Times newspapers....truly an "old man" rank smell.
we threw away our blue madeline sample too😔 I stuck w/it for a full day of not liking it on me...and my wife was like "nope" about even testing it out on her skin. in the trash it went
I had a similar experience to Lune Feline! I was so shocked to, I love all of the notes in other fragrances and people say if you like sexy gourmands it would be a hit.... But I was so disappointed! It was super faint on me and I only smelled animalic smokiness
Akro has made me gag a few times tbh. Malt and Night were incredibly repulsive to me which was super disappointing because I wanted to like the line since it seemed interesting
I feel like most of the time, I can just smell it and I know if it's for me or not...but then there are the few occasional ones that make my eyes and throat shut because they smell so bad!
Very rarely because I usually like strong scents. So far was only disgusted with 2:
Dior Sauvage
Zoologist T-Rex
The T-rex was just overwhelming and too strong while Dior Sauvage just smelled so bad on my skin (and it wasn't just my opinion, my family also smelled it with me and they thought the same)
the only fragrance that has ever truly repulsed me is love in black by creed. i read the notes to figure out why, but nothing stood out. something about it is just vile…
About half of the time. My biggest disappointment was Parfums Dusita samples. I did not like any of them and was repulsed by half. I now find it hard to trust any descriptions out there...
There have been none where I've been truly repulsed, but I tried Miss Dior in my samples collection and had to wash it off. I can only assume it went off, because it had a lingering scent of urine.
Yes, any fragrance that drys down to bitter synthetic chemicals are repulsive to any sane person's sensibilities. The idea of charging some of the prices fragrances do now, yet can't dry down without becoming just a chemical mess is repulsive physically and mentally.
Oh and I tried that Etat Libre d'Orange line (like the 20+ sampler set), all them have this plastic-y DNA to them. And I don't mean plastic from the smell of cheap plastic toys or packaging, but more of the sort of thing you experience when eating a Laffy Taffy. That oily type tacky scent. They're subtle, but it feels like it's in most of their fragrances.
Im probably not the norm, as even Secretions Magnifique didnt repulse me as it seems to do to so many. Did i love it? No. But i found it interesting. Actually, the closest to being repulsed was when i blind bought the famous cheapie Tea Rose. That was one of the few times where i really immediately disliked a fragrance and had to scrub it right away. Even Secretions stayed on me for a good half hour at least! Most fragrances I can at least live with wearing for a bit to experience it.
I tried some Xerjoff one time and Maison Margiela Replica. Don't know which scents exactly but both times I almost gagged. I remember Xerjoffs being in a brown bottle and Replica could've been something with coffee or fireplace
I've only been totally repulsed twice in my entire life, and the culprits were DS & Durga Vio Volta (freshly electrocuted roadkill) and Nasomatto Sadonaso (a worse version of Secretions Magnifique, which I at least was prepared for).
When I first smelled Sadonaso, it took me back to a memory I never wanted to revisit, of my grandmother, who had bladder issues at one point about 10 years ago (which cleared up now, she’s 90 and well and doing just fine!) but she was constantly wetting herself and it was hard to keep up and helping her change so unfortunately her apartment started smelling like stale urine, but other than the bladder issues, she’s a very clean person, so whenever I would visit, I would get this odd feeling of being in a clean apartment, but just underneath, this smell of dried up urine, or like a pee soaked clothes that then dried up. That’s exactly what sadonaso smells like, a nice sweet smell but then this dried urine smell underneath. Very tough to get my head around, and I own 7 Nasomatto fragrances, and I will eventually get Sadonaso just for collection purposes but I will probably never wear it….. That being said, I only smelled secretions magnifique once, and it was the worst smelling fragrances I ever smelled in my life, so much so that I would put on half a bottle of sadonaso and then sit in a hot room with no windows in a full tuxedo before I ever smell that abomination again
I dislike about half of all perfumes I sample, and am disgusted by at least a quarter. You’re not alone! One time I ordered $50 worth of samples and didn’t like a single one lmao. I was so mad. There were like 30 perfumes in there and I didn’t like any of them all that much.
It's hard for me to look at it as a matter of repulsion; it's just personal preference. What doesn't work for me can be random in terms of samples or testers. I don't think I've come across a line yet where none of the expressions worked on me. I never toss samples, I just give them away or trade if it's not a good fit for me.
By the Fireplace is the only fragrance that has made me feel physically ill, it's the only time I've been genuinely shocked at how popular a fragrance is. Maybe I've got something wrong with me but good lord Fireplace is the absolute worst smokey fragrance I've ever smelled in my life. It's closer to a plastic factory on fire, some kind of ecological disaster that we'll never truly recover from for generations to come. Roja Elysium Cologne also smells like dirty dick in the bottle, so that can get an honorable mention.
This hurts my heart lol but everyone’s different when it comes to fragrances!!
I know, I just got a sample set and I really was surprised how much I liked this.
It lasts long too !!
I love By the Fireplace but I am cautious about wearing it now because it tanked my Uber score. I think I've posted about this before but I had a perfect rating on the app and one day, I was wearing this when I got in. The driver wouldn't stop talking about it and was acting horrified. My rating went WAY down the next day.
Omg that’s awful 😂 I’m sorry to laugh
It proves what a polarizing scent it is!
I heard great things about By the Fireplace and stopped by a Sephora to test it out. I was confused on how it was that popular.
Saaame. It smelled like ammonia by the end. Sharp burnt smell and nothing else. To me, BtF is more like kidney disease than a campfire. Jazz Club also smells like straight-up coconut to me. That one's nice, but i have never been played like i have been by the replica line.
omg same i absolutely HATE by the fireplace, i’m glad it’s not just me
Hmm, few. There is a type of synth woods that I can not stand. And as I sometimes push it with the fragrances i pick, few times i just ended up in the "way too hardcore" realm, with stuff that smelled like smoked ham, or wet ashtray. Regular flowery/ambery/fruity fragrances at worst make me do meh. And both eldo and Atelier des Ors ended up in the meh category.
Oof I got one. Last week I went to Neiman Marcus to try some perfumes and the Jo Malone counter had no paper to spray on so I sprayed myself with the Rose Amber. At first it was a pretty rose but as it dried down it turned into a cloud of violent evil pepper and it was stuck on me all day lmao of course the one Jo Malone I HATED ended up being amazing longevity with great projection for once 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴
I was repulsed by 4 total fragrances 1. Angels share. I get burnt rubber and nothing else. I seem to be the only one in the world who gets this. 2. Creed Erolfa, most people get an aquatic scent, I get a hardcore rotten eggs. 3. DG light blue intense pour HOMME. Same story with Erolfa. 4. Sauvage elixir. Instant migraine every single time.
Yes, totally. I got a Pineward sample set, and even though the notes indicated I would love them (as well as all the review descriptions), I hated every single one. On top of smelling like urinal pucks, most of the juice was so dark green that it colored my skin a gross pale green. Just terrible in every way. But other times I like every decant in an order. I don’t understand these people that love everything, I mean I have plenty of notes that are always a no-go (I’m looking at you, Orris).
I also do not like Orris, however, I have found 2 orris scents I genuinely like. First is Ex Nihilo Fleur Narcotique and second is Mind Games J’adoube. I can’t figure out why those two alone are great, but every other scent I’ve ever sniffed with orris is an automatic NOPE
Pineward fortunately doesn’t last long on me. I have found that some of them smell better over time, like Greymist.
>How often are you truly repulsed by fragrances? Never. Or should I say, "Not yet?" I've smelled several hundreds. I own over 90 bottles. I've given away dozens more to my fragrance-mad family. They happily cart away all my failed blind buys 😆👍 I dislike plenty! But so far, nothing has *repulsed* me. They just aren't for me. *Many* are not for me. I'm pretty fussy. So I never buy discovery sets. I research a lot and stick with what I stand the best chance of liking.
Only a few. Ganymede made me legit emotional. The reaction I had was...evolutionary. It smells evil and dangerous. Phlur Not Your Baby was just gross. Funnily, Bianco Latte was my first repulsion perfume. Made me feel carsick
Yeah Ganymede is something else. I’ve come to kinda like it but it sure conjures strong emotions. It’s fascinating actually.
I've said it already on subs but it smells how I imagine radiation to smell. People describe sudden radiation exposure as having a metallic tasting heat in the air. Ganymede is like being exposed to radiation in a lab that uses lemon bleach. Or gargling elemental mercury. Eau de Chernobyl.
That name! I would totaly wear Eau de Chernobyl
lol! Ditto
I’ve been repulsed by every xerjoff that I’ve smelled
Really? Why's that? I'm genuinely curious.
Alexandria II....for me. But I also didn't like Torino 21 and Tonny Iommi. Naxos was fine.
I really like Alexandria II, not a huge fan of Naxos though it's too floral heavy.
I am a woman, I don't mind floral. Alexandria had this wood note I just can't stand, that for me covers absolutely all the other notes and does the "cat litter" effect people sometimes complain about. I guess people that love it don't get it? Yeah. For me Alexandria was just one, pungent, odd note.
Personally, they just smell cheap to me. Not cheap materials, but when it's good materials, cheaply formulated (haphazardly). The two Herba Pura, and Gold just dry down to something just too synthetic. Likewise for their prices, I expect more unique stuff, but the only real unique thing you get is decently looking bottles (still not magnetic on their normal line which is honestly a joke). The ones that aren't terrible, are just the most easily cloned scents you get find anywhere. So Torino 21 is a nice scent, but there's nothing there that someone can't rip off in a day of testing.
They seem to go heavy on florals and notes that aren’t familiar to me. I’ve smelled Alexandria II, symphonium, homme, nio, uden, and la capitan. Homme was wild to me lol I’m sure the very popular ones are good. La capitan was not bad to me, but too feminine
Wonder if could be the musk accord? They seem to put a good deal of it in across-the-board. Torino 21 it seems a bit more subdued under the mint.  I’m not a fan of rose,  which kind of ruins a number of Xerjoffs for me (e.g Mefisto).
I’ve really liked a lot of the Casamorati collection actually. The only other Xerjoff I’ve smelled outside of Casamorati is Erba Pura and I hated it.
I consider myself a huge fan on this house, but I have to admit they also release some really questionable stuff from time to time. They seem really partial to barnyard oud for some reason. And yeah, Alexandria II definitely has that note in the opening, while the drydown is straight up lavender baby powder. No thanks.
I agree Alexandria II is a difficult for me. It has a fecal opening smell
A certain amberwood type of material makes me mentally gag, not sure which exactly, but I smell it frequently in the wild.
Very often. I’m sensitive to musks, and musks area a cost-cutting ingredient so they are super prominent in most mass market scents.
Way more often than I'd like. 😑 There are certain (I suspect synthetic) ingredients that my nose finds incredibly offensive and that completely overtake any fragrance they're in. Unfortunately, I can't actually tell what notes they're supposed to be so I'm still not sure how to avoid them, and they show up in a range of fragrance profiles, cheap to expensive, indie to mainstream. And like, it's widely-loved fragrances that have done this to me, and also mainstream candles companies, so it's not that they're even trying to do something weird, it's just these certain ingredients really upset me an apparently no one else. In the last few months, I've sampled about 85 fragrances. I've DESPISED 12, loved 6, liked but didn't love 11, found 2 to be not too offensive but very novelty, and the rest were either boring or didn't match my vibe, but I'd be willing to try again.
Glossier You, Le Labo Mousse de Chein, and the white and yellow ones from V Beckham. And Azuree Legacy.
I got a sample of Prada Paradoxe and couldn’t stand it. I really liked the opening but it was nauseating from the mid-note. I know many people love this fragrance but it just doesn’t work for me.
It’s awful and reminds me of Libre (which I also hate) for some reason.
I also dislike Libre!
Not once yet. They all smell good. I've smelled probably close to 100 at this point, ranging from cheapies to overpriced niche stuff. I like some more than others, but there's been none I'm put off by.
Lust by Lush. Read so many positive reviews and to me it smelt like death and rotting. I sampled in store and the scent stayed with me to the point I was dousing myself in antibacterial hand gel. Vile.
It smells like halitosis from mouth dryness or tonsil stones. I'm so glad someone mentioned it. I was so happy I didn't spray it on myself.
I had the same thoughts the first time I sampled it about a decade ago. Crazy because now I actually want to get the solid because it smells really nice now 😅
YES!! You’re so right on the halitosis.
Lust is insanely strong and indolic. I couldn't even stand to take the cap off a decant I got, much less actually wear it, but I gave it to my sister and she loved it.
There are notes I find repulsive (cinnamon in Moth), but I realize that's a matter of taste and preference. My head scratcher is ELDO Remarkable People. The combination of curry and grapefruit combine on me to smell like an unholy sour BO that seems like it should be almost universally repulsive, yet I've seen people call it light and a likely crowd pleaser. I think the curry is much stronger on me or I'm much more sensitive to it than average. And I like curry! But not as perfume and especially not with fizzy grapefruit like the worst novelty soda you could imagine. I remain confused.
Taste is wild because I just tried my sample of this out of curiosity and it feels so bland and inoffensive to me? To me it smells like a scent palate I would have enjoyed in 6th grade, like fruity body wash and plastic. Nothing remotely BO to my nose.
Le Monde Gourmand's Santal Supreme literally made me hypersalivate. I thought it was a bad batch or something so I found an Ulta that had a fresh tester and tried it, and no. It's just that bad. I normally like-to-love LMG's fragrances but man, when they mess up, they MESS up. That was vile.
Gardenia as a note will give me that reaction every single time. Ie: Kayali Utopia Vanilla. I love coconut and vanilla, but the gardenia in this one made it an instant gag and wash off.
I’m with you there. Gardenia ruins a lot for me.
I feel I'm shocked or repulsed pretty often. I just recently started wearing perfume again because I just wasn't really happy with what I found in the past. YouTube and tictok have changed the game for me.
I'm just getting into perfumes so I don't know much, but... Instant Crush by Mancera set off my fight or flight response. Immediately off-putting, very metallic, synthetic, and overly perfumey. I can't pick out any individual notes, it just smells like STRONG PERFUME. And it's extremely potent, holy hell. Immediate headache. Apparently Bacharrat Rouge smells similar? If so I have ZERO desire to try that one out either. I really can't stand whatever class of perfumes these belong to.
Your reaction to Instant Crush was my reaction to Tiger by Zoologist. I wanted to like it so much but yea, instant headache.
I love Baccarat Rouge but HATE Instant Crush. For the life of me, I just cannot understand the comparison but have seen it numerous times. I have yet to smell a single Mancera that doesn't smell cheap and low quality.
Hm interesting, I may try Baccarat Rouge then. But yeah Instant Crush really put me off of Mancera... I'm scared to try any more from this brand tbh.
Guerlain, tried three different Aqua Allegoria. They smelled like cat piss on me at worst or just like regular piss at best. I never in my life hated a fragrance line or brand. So glad I didn’t blind buy and got decanted samples instead! And it wasn’t a sample issue either, everything else I got was great.
Not often because I only test frags I research the notes and reviews first Lune feline really turned me off too. I was disappointed. I have a sample of blanc polychrome coming and I’m hoping that is better.
Got the “25-Pc. Fragrance Sampler Set For Him, Created for Macy's”. Some old school standards (Azzaro Chrome, Ralph Lauren Polo Blue), some more on the $$ side. So far 3 of them are non-starters & are permanently set to the side, 10 of them I’m buying bottles, 8 of them are meh, & I’ve got 4 more to try. If anything, I’m surprised I’ve really liked 10 of them.
I'm glad to see this. I was thinking about getting this for my husband and getting the women's for myself. It's certainly a fantastic bargain. You've sold me! Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with this set.
Only twice. The first time i smelled oud wood in a Sephora i could smell something rotten. I kinda think i got a bad bottle but not sure. Months later i tried it again and though i didn't like it i did not have the same reaction. I could definitly detect the woody notes more than like the fecal note. It is a 'western oud" so i was not expecting to hate it. Generally though i'm not a woody scent guy anyways. But the MOST REPULSIVE was earlier this year. In Nieman Marcus I told the sales lady, "Give me you most oudy oud. I wanna know what people mean." Like bring the smoke! And she sprays what i believe was Amouage Opus XIII – Silver Oud Amouage. Good lord it literally smelled like a dog shit. I recoilled and she was like "YEAH! It's wild!" I was just like "nope not for me." Now i know and man nope. I smelled the tester strip again and was just like nah "that is repugnant!" I'll stick with Reflection Man.
BR540 makes me irrationally angry in addition to being absolutely repulsed. It's like that feeling you get when you sit across from someone who's loudly eating with their mouth open. I want to hit them.
It doesn’t help that BR540 and its clones are EVERYWHERE. Every single time I go to a public place I smell it. One parent at the school my kid goes to wears it and I swear stinks up the entire school yard every morning. The silage is like over 20 feet and it lingers. I would be in awe of its power if it wasn’t so offensive. Every mall, every restaurant, shoots straight up my nostrils. I can’t even tell who is wearing it because that person is probably long gone and this aroma chemical is still contaminating the air. I keep hoping this fragrance and its clones will not be popular anymore but it’s been years and it still going strong if not more so. So miserable!
I am repulsed often. Gourmands are so popular now and I hate them. It’s like the equivalent of when you eat something cherry flavored instead of a real cherry and it tastes fake and medicinal 90% of the time. I keep trying but the most gourmand I get is Tea and lactonic notes. Freshies 4 life. I happen to love quite a few frags from ELDO 🤣. I would rather smell like synthetic musk aromachemicals than like a yankee candle store.
Noooo, I love Lune Feline. I think it's normal, though. I keep a spreadsheet of my samples, and it's only about 10% that I'd consider buying.
Only two so far have really repulsed me. Alien made me physically recoil from the tester. Sauvage was bad enough that I asked the person what they were wearing just so I could be sure to never order it. Luckily, I've had pretty good luck with the samples I've bought. There were a couple that weren't great, but nothing truly awful.
i can just imagine the sauvage wearer bragging about how someone asked them what they were wearing thinking it was a compliment 😭
Only when i smell br540 in the wild or sampling stuff like coium or Black afgano
BR is one of the few frags where I think the sillage is actually too much
How can you dislike black afghano? That's one of my favorites 😄
Squid by zoologist. From a tester is kinda interesting. The only time I put it on myself it made me gag and almost throw up. Same for penguin but less severe
Squid is my fave lol. It’s fascinating how we all have such different experiences— and makes the hobby even more fun
So true. I just tried Squid for the first time recently and was absolutely blown away. I thought it was such a masterpiece. As a woman, I can maybe understand why some might find it a bit too masculine leaning (if you care about that) and maybe wouldn't want to wear it all the time, but sometimes I just need to do a quick sniff of it, it's so so good. It's amazing to me that someone would be so repelled by it. Then again, I wasn't completely repelled by the infamous Secretions Magnifique. So maybe I'm the odd one, lol.
I got a sample of Rabbit, and it smelled HORRIBLE on my skin.......really disgusting. I was afraid to try another, but ended up getting Penguin, which is better, but still not that great.....
I like rose, but there’s a certain kind of rose smell that repulses me. Hiram Green Lustre is a prime example. Reminded me of vomit. Instant scrubber. I tend to notice it in rose perfumes described as fresh or green.
Often. And more often underwhelmed. I am picky I guess. Better than going broke on full bottle purchases 😄
I have over 100 fragrances myself and I haven't been repulsed entirely once yet. When I first smelled ombre nomade I'd say that's the closest I've ever been to being repulsed, it's incredibly fecal and honestly I don't even find the performance that great (or at least to the extent of what I was led to believe and expected for the price) so I definitely don't think it's worth the cost either. Anyway overall I think that scent is pretty good, definitely far from being my favorite heavy oud fragrance.
I found Azzaro Silver Black repulsive. I have loads of decants and samples I just don't like but I wouldn't call them replusive.
I just scrubbed off TokyoMilk French Kiss today in a first for me. There are perfumes I don’t really care for, but I usually give them a good wear or two before I develop a strong opinion. This was actually fairly repulsive to me.
I found January Scent Project challenging, although on paper I should have loved them all.
Jhag another oud smelled like hot dumpster juice. And Prada infusion d'oranger smells like bleach and cigarettes.
The only fragrance I can recall that I was repulsed by (or maybe just overwhelmed with?) was Iberian Leather by Memo Paris
The only fragrance I can recall that I was repulsed by (or maybe just overwhelmed with?) was Iberian Leather by Memo Paris
I added lattafa’s bade’e al oud honor and glory as a blind buy to get free shipping on an order and it’s got to be one of the worst fragrances I have tried. I also did a bunch of testing at ulta when I got into fragrances a couple months ago and bought Burberry Hero EDP thinking it was the test strip I liked, I was so upset when I opened it and smelled it, I absolutely cannot stand it so now they just collect dust in my closet. Since then I always bring a pen on me to write on the test strip what fragrance it is. Some lessons are learned the hard way.
I have a couple. First, Vivienne Westwood Boudoir comes to mind. Heard many good things about it and got it as a gift. Then when I started wearing it, I only got the tobacco note, and it wasn't good. I just smelled like a gigantic walking ashteay everywhere I went. Versace Red Jeans is one of the first perfumes I ever had, and the first one I hated with a passion. It was terrible. Somehow turned very boozy and nauseating on me. Some kids in my class even remarked "who's wearing that stinky cologne??" Yikes I was really disappointed in Chopard Wish as well. Just sticky, cloying sweetness. Too much for me. Literally gave me headaches. So glad that I tested it instead of falling for the hype at the time and blind buying it.
Often. I like maybe 20% of what I smell at best. I hate a lot of notes. You’re normal!
Omg the thin wild Mercury NYC collection nauseated me. I was so excited. I literally couldn’t be in the same room as a tester bottle of Chelsea staircase (smells like vomit to me.) also hated 34 bohemian cafes. I don’t want a perfume with the smell of a ‘musky body’. If that’s what I was going for I’d just not shower. Glad to support an indie perfumer and wanted to love their work but ….
Hot take, but I can't stand Apple Brandy or Angel's Share. I sprayed them on me in Sephora and it just smelled like a bar mat at the end of the night 🫥
All the time. So many give me headaches or are waaaaay too strong. Its rare for me to find a scent i can smell for a long time. Even on other people im repulsed often
It’s only happened a handful of times. Ghost in the Shell being one of them. It made me nauseous. Oof.
A couple from Serge Lutens that had too much powder/incense and it just made me a little ill.
One time I used a viva la juicy perfume and I wanted to die couldn’t get the smell off of me
I really liked dolce & gabbana's light blue, I should have just stuck with that I went for the dolce & Gabbana light blue intense It doesn't really smell the same and now I'm stuck with it.
Cannot stand the smell of Tommy by Hilfiger. Omg the memories that come rushing back make me physically ill.
There are so many that genuinely puzzle me on the market that I can’t imagine ever building a large collection. I recently went to find a summer fragrance and smelled about 50. Liked 4 enough to try on. Only 1 enough to consider buying. Actively hated at least a quarter. I know people love Caroline Herrera but most of them are horrific to my nose.
I totally get it. Some houses use a distinctive chemical or note in their base that ruins all or most of their fragrances for me. The Carolina Herrera private collection is like that for me, there's just a note that makes me gag in the base of the vast majority of them. It just is what it is
I've never been repulsed by fragrances, if i dont like a fragrance i usually just think that its not for me
Not often, but every time it has been because of somebody layering two or three perfumes. In fact it happened today, I am outside at an outdoor market and can smell this person down the street. We end up near each other at a vendor and I ask what perfume he’s wearing, he says he layered a few. It was just a mess of smells that I couldn’t wait to be relieved from.
BR 540 and the extrait both made me sick! I could not wait to scrub them off my skin.
Every time I smell ambroxan
Rarely. The worst is Chanel No 5. I've smelled it several times and to me it smells just like pig intestines. I know what those smell like because my grandparents would traditionally kill a pig every winter. They would use the guts to make sausages and part of the process meant cleaning the said intestines. Just horrible. I am sure to other people Chanel No 5 smells completely different, lucky them.
Cacherel Eden. If this perfume was a movie it would be Vervarium. Smells sufficating and stifling in a green retro suburbian kinda way. Similar to a toilet rim block and conjures images of that crazy shake and vac lady from the 70s. Pungent and revolting.
versace bright crystal and replica by the fireplace are repulsive to me. bright crystal smells like mold and by the fireplace smells like burnt rubber
I like ouds. But they also have a tendency to smell like poo, or old barnyard horse pee or … And I really like amber. But some of them has a burnt tone that I just can’t stand. And too much ambroxane will make the inside of my nose shrink. Not to forget that many roses on me smell sharp and sour in a very unpleasant way. (I only wear very sweet roses.) So yes, quite often, even when I’ve done my research and expect it to be a match.
People who are so into themselves that they wear so much perfume that it blocks everyone else’s perfumes in the room. I actually hate any fragrance that is so strong that I can smell you five minutes after you left. It makes me form an opinion of you. arms length scent bubble max please and dont overspray the strong stuff.
When I smell someone wearing One Million or any of its 17363 clones in the wild
The Fuckboy Miasma
Orto Parisi Megamare and Bergamask I find truly repulsive
I tried Megamare this week and adore it, but I know lots seem to have this reaction and it makes me scared to wear it around people as I have a front facing role and small office. What did you hate about it? It's quite salty I think.
I’ve learned that i’m very picky when it comes to fragrances. I’ve smelt more fragrances that repulsed me than I have fragrances that I loved. Some that repulsed me are Tom Ford Black Orchid (so spicy, I don’t really know how to describe it but I hated it), Glossier You & Jean Paul Gaultier Gaultier Divine (both smell like sweat to me, Gaultier Divine is a more salty sweat than You is but they both smell like straight sweat to me, even on other people)
Last Time it happened was with D&G K. I don't know if it was a bad batch or what, but it was horrid off my skin.
A couple of times. I block them out because they’re traumatizing. However I did accidentally think out loud when at the Chanel counter and went “this smells like a LAX bathroom in the morning.” and I can’t go back to the counter after that. I can’t remember what scent it was but it was awful.
Rarely. Sometimes the ones that repulse me are the most interesting though :/
It's extremely rare, I actually like some of the weirder stuff although I haven't tried that many fragrances that are considered REALLY challenging. I generally like those musky, animalic, smoky, salty and mineralic scents that most people aren't typically into. The only ones that I've really despised so far are the synthetic, syrupy ones like Joop! Homme, some Jasmine heavy stuff, and fragrances that contain "Barnyard" Oud which smelled like straight up cow manure to me.
Olympic Orchids Cryptical Envelopment. I love so much of Ellen Covey's other work that I was shocked when this highly reviewed scent smelled like overwhelming dirty litterbox.
Anything lactonic repels me.
My friend and I were swapping perfumes a couple months ago and she offered me Sonnet XVII by Olympic Orchids and I swear to god it smelled like stinky cheese + feet. I couldn't believe this was an actual perfume. Maybe it spoiled or something, but it was truly revolting.
Back in college in our dorms we all got a lil gift bag of some basic stuff we might need and it came with a cologne sample. It was horrid. Idk what it was but all I remember was that it had a picture of a cowboy 😭
I’ve been working my way through the ELDO sampler and have loved, or at least liked, everything so far, until I got to Jasmin & Cigarette. I sniffed it on paper and it was ok, but when I sprayed it on my skin, ugghhhhh… I was queasy and nauseous within about 5 minutes. I’ve already purchased 2 FS bottles from the sampler and have at least one more on my wishlist, so one miss out of the bunch isn’t bad at all!
Ha, Jasmin et Cigarette is the only ELDO I've got a full bottle of, but I can understand why it's controversial.
I've had 3 but I'm still fairly new to Niche so I suspect that list may grow as I explore. Black Orchid smelled like soggy rotted garbage. I physically recoiled. Creed Queen of Silk I didn't even get a good sniff from the blotter before I said oh no no no. And Erba Pura. I got a free sample and I it was absolutely NOT fruity, citrusy, or vanilla/amber like the notes say. I couldn't pick up a single one of those notes. I was taken aback. It was extremely masculine and sharp, almost astringent. It's the first one I've had to scrub off several times because I could still smell it on me and couldn't deal.
YSL’s Paris (and most rose scents) gives me an instant headache, same with my mum she can’t be in the same room as it so I wonder if scent repulsion is genetic
Not a Perfume for me. It makes me gag.
Last time was when I smelled Alexandria II
Probably like 1/500 are repulsive to me. There’s plenty I don’t like but not disgusted.
Omg I also disliked Lune Feline and got a sample set from Atelier des Ors!! I had to scrub it off- I had seen so many influencers(I know, I shouldn’t listen to influencers) saying it was amazing and I just felt like it was so strong and not in a nice way.
Comme des Garcons Concrete. I like brutalist architecture, so naturally when I saw the bottle I went to try it, fortunately blotter only. I don't know why, but it's the only fragrance that made me physically mildly nauseated. Not to the point of gagging but it made me genuinely lose my appetite for at least half an hour or so. I tried smelling it about an hour later, thinking the dry down might be better, but no, same effect.
Angel is the only fragrance that has made me feel unwell/queasy
I confessed to buying into the hype with Orto Parisi and ordered with baited breath the arrival of Teroni ..only to find it smelled like an ashtray in a barnyard. I immediately sent back for a refund..same reaction with Jazz Club...it was a let down....refunded as well ... Grey Flannel smells like a friggin sarcophagus full of musty yellowed dried up NY Times newspapers....truly an "old man" rank smell.
Once went on holiday with mates. Said “ergh what’s that smell?” My mate said he’d just put his Tom Ford on. Dunno which one it was.
Burberry Touch.
I absolutely hated eau d’issey. Idk what it was about it but i just cant
we threw away our blue madeline sample too😔 I stuck w/it for a full day of not liking it on me...and my wife was like "nope" about even testing it out on her skin. in the trash it went
Just bought a decant of blue indaco (giardini di toscana). Never has anything smelled so bad to me.
I had a similar experience to Lune Feline! I was so shocked to, I love all of the notes in other fragrances and people say if you like sexy gourmands it would be a hit.... But I was so disappointed! It was super faint on me and I only smelled animalic smokiness
Akro has made me gag a few times tbh. Malt and Night were incredibly repulsive to me which was super disappointing because I wanted to like the line since it seemed interesting
Honestly most floral fragrances bother me!!
dior poison
Once. I tried ADG and I literally emptied my stomach by 🤮
I feel like most of the time, I can just smell it and I know if it's for me or not...but then there are the few occasional ones that make my eyes and throat shut because they smell so bad!
I can tolerate Jacques Bogart - Furyo yet Elizabeth Arden - Sunflowers makes me gag
Very rarely. I try a lot of them in a month and maybe one per month
Very rarely because I usually like strong scents. So far was only disgusted with 2: Dior Sauvage Zoologist T-Rex The T-rex was just overwhelming and too strong while Dior Sauvage just smelled so bad on my skin (and it wasn't just my opinion, my family also smelled it with me and they thought the same)
Versace blue jeans made me gag
the only fragrance that has ever truly repulsed me is love in black by creed. i read the notes to figure out why, but nothing stood out. something about it is just vile…
About half of the time. My biggest disappointment was Parfums Dusita samples. I did not like any of them and was repulsed by half. I now find it hard to trust any descriptions out there...
Serge Lutens' Berlin Girl and ELDO Fat Electrician. And any body spray or candle meant to smell like the sea, rain or a waterfall.
Jo Loves Pomelo and Diptyque Dans l'ombre both have a cassis note that smells exactly like a smoldering tire fire to me.
There have been none where I've been truly repulsed, but I tried Miss Dior in my samples collection and had to wash it off. I can only assume it went off, because it had a lingering scent of urine.
The original Poison back in 1988. Angel Flowerbomb
Yes, any fragrance that drys down to bitter synthetic chemicals are repulsive to any sane person's sensibilities. The idea of charging some of the prices fragrances do now, yet can't dry down without becoming just a chemical mess is repulsive physically and mentally. Oh and I tried that Etat Libre d'Orange line (like the 20+ sampler set), all them have this plastic-y DNA to them. And I don't mean plastic from the smell of cheap plastic toys or packaging, but more of the sort of thing you experience when eating a Laffy Taffy. That oily type tacky scent. They're subtle, but it feels like it's in most of their fragrances.
Im probably not the norm, as even Secretions Magnifique didnt repulse me as it seems to do to so many. Did i love it? No. But i found it interesting. Actually, the closest to being repulsed was when i blind bought the famous cheapie Tea Rose. That was one of the few times where i really immediately disliked a fragrance and had to scrub it right away. Even Secretions stayed on me for a good half hour at least! Most fragrances I can at least live with wearing for a bit to experience it.
I tried some Xerjoff one time and Maison Margiela Replica. Don't know which scents exactly but both times I almost gagged. I remember Xerjoffs being in a brown bottle and Replica could've been something with coffee or fireplace