Sali Hughes #35 She wore Vampire's Wife dresses when they were still Vampire's Girlfriend

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

Here's your sister! Love those ones too and also don't care about smelling of complex notes, or smelling 'expensive' as Sali would no doubt say. And in all the years I've worn perfume I have had the most compliments about 'mainstream' perfumes, hardly ever get a compliment when I've worn niche ones. Or maybe I didn't get a compliment because I wasn't 'woman' enough to pull them off

I see perfume a lot like make-up - when you actually wear it, nobody can tell anything about it other than how good, bad or indifferent it smells on you. Nobody can see whether your lipstick is a Chanel or a Rimmel when you have it actually on your lips. application and knowing what colours and look suits you is way more essential than brand. The rest is just label snobbery if someone's actually ridiculous enough to judge you. If it looks good on you, that's all that matters. If people want to judge me for not wearing boutique fragrance that costs £120 for 30ml or whatever, they can indulge, but they're just snobs who think they're better because they can afford expensive stuff. Sorry. Yeah, I know it's nice to have nice stuff, and there's pleasure in owning really nice stuff that appeals to you from whatever brand, but it's our own business how we spend money and people literally looking down on people who wear mainstream cheaper fragrances are just posturing from a very precarious position.

Some high-end fragrances smell incredible and some are absolutely no different from a Coty fragrance tbqh, and frankly some Coty smells great. There are some niche ones I think are just taking the piss too in terms of price and what they offer. Anyway, I love Tom Ford Black Orchid but cannot justify spending £80+ on it, so I bought a smell-a-like from Milton Lloyd which pleases me greatly. I also love Shalimar EDP ... but have to limit myself to cheeky airport sprays in duty free right now. Life is short, not going to worry about it!

 

[MakkaPakka]

Reapplying lipstick is 'a good look'?
Is it? No doubt Sali thinks it is sexy.
I don't dislike it but Sali seems to be a bit obsessed with putting on makeup in public. I sometimes see it as a necessary evil but I don't see it as a 'thing'.

It's part of the "I'm so badass and carefree" attitude - doesn't iron, applys make-up on train because: busy, will never be a proper mum (her words, not mine).

 

[zcfthc5]

It's part of the "I'm so badass and carefree" attitude - doesn't iron, applys make-up on train because: busy, will never be a proper mum (her words, not mine).

“I’m not like a regular mom, I’m a cool mom… Urgh you girls keep me young, God love ya”

 

[Gentle Reader]

Long time lurker here (I posted a couple of times subsequent to Freaky Friday) drawn out of hiding by the wonderful perfume chat here, and the wish to defend my beloved POAL from She Here’s accusations of whorerishness. Yes, it is strong, but the smallest spray of it creates the most gorgeous haunting evocative silage that catches at the heart (at least mine). It’s the only perfume that has ever compelled me to to stop someone in the street and ask the wearer its name. And the only perfume I’ve ever been stopped whilst wearing too. It’s not particularly animalic - which a whorish perfume I’m presuming would be - but as Particularparsnip says it’s a very dark woody rose patchouli with hints of incense, and I think oud (though oud is not listed as a note). It’s so expensive that I wouldn’t shell out for a full bottle, you can get travel minis which I think are 10ml and I think you can get 5ml ones too… Carnal Flower also has that haunting evocative quality to its silage when used in small quantities, and because I find the price point of Frederic Malle crazy, I’m constantly driven back to eBay to buy decants!

A lot of SH’s perfume rhetoric seems to be gleaned from Turin and Sanchez’s iconic tome: Perfumes, The Guide - which I note India Knight is a big fan of too.

And just out of interest, although a little late in the debate, does anyone have any idea what kind of payment would have been given for the paid partnership with Lumene day cream - I just have no idea what fee an influencer like SH would get for something like that ?

 

[SqualorVictoria]

I have that book, India's endorsement quote is on the cover and that pisses me right off. They couldn't have found anyone else? There are tinnes of talented perfume writers out there

I bet Sali checks that book before deciding if she likes a perfume or not

 

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

It’s not particularly animalic - which a whorish perfume I’m presuming would be - but as Particularparsnip says it’s a very dark woody rose patchouli with hints of incense, and I think oud (though oud is not listed as a note).

Tabu by Dana, created in 1932, is meant to be the ultimate 'bleep' perfume, because that was the brief for it's creation back in the day, 'a perfume that would be worn by a bleep'. I'm not sure what was even meant by that, apart from that fact Tabu is very loud and pungent and kind of walks into the room ahead of you, but for all that it's a nice smell, actually quite addictive if it's your sort of thing. It's not animalic, instead rather spicy and resinous, with a lot of amber and florals and woods mixed in.

It's an example of how ad copy around fragrances affect people's perception of them if you go read the reviews on somewhere like fragrantia or wherever. If it were described as a festive fragrance I think people would perceive it very differently. My perception of it before I read the original copy by Barcelona was that it was a heavy perfume for the winter season, as it's very warming. But go read the reviews and you see endless people shrieking in disgust about how it's for disgusting hooooors and smells so trashy and they would NEVER, as it's only for cheap trashy women.

I never really trust reviews that fly off into these subjective readings of a fragrance. I'd rather hear about the category (is it an oriental, a chypre, a fruity floral etc), its sillage, its longevity and maybe what other current fragrances it may resemble in some way. I'd never buy anything on the basis of Sali recommending it because she just talks tit around her idea of the fragrance and the type of woman who should wear it rather than its actual smell.

 

[SqualorVictoria]

I have that book, India's endorsement quote is on the cover and that pisses me right off. They couldn't have found anyone else? There are tinnes of talented perfume writers out there

I bet Sali checks that book before deciding if she likes a perfume or not

*Tonnes! Argh

 

[HattieJakes]

She here's perfume should be "Portrait of a Cool Girl"

 

[Pixie06]

Or, "Elle Ici de gris froid"

 

[Gentle Reader]

I have that book, India's endorsement quote is on the cover and that pisses me right off. They couldn't have found anyone else? There are tinnes of talented perfume writers out there

I bet Sali checks that book before deciding if she likes a perfume or not

She definitely checks it - only five star classics for She Here! I too wondered why they used a quote from IK, but maybe she reviewed it somewhere..?

Tabu by Dana, created in 1932, is meant to be the ultimate 'bleep' perfume, because that was the brief for it's creation back in the day, 'a perfume that would be worn by a bleep'. I'm not sure what was even meant by that, apart from that fact Tabu is very loud and pungent and kind of walks into the room ahead of you, but for all that it's a nice smell, actually quite addictive if it's your sort of thing. It's not animalic, instead rather spicy and resinous, with a lot of amber and florals and woods mixed in.

It's an example of how ad copy around fragrances affect people's perception of them if you go read the reviews on somewhere like fragrantia or wherever. If it were described as a festive fragrance I think people would perceive it very differently.

Yes absolutely - brilliant point. Dana could so be in the cosy, warming, spicy, Christmassy category like Nuit de Noel, Coco and Youth dew Amber Nude if it had been framed and marketed like that. For me if a fragrance had to be put in the 'bleep' category surely it would be Secretions Magnifique - though frankly can't imagine ANYONE wearing that, whatever their line of work.

She here's perfume should be "Portrait of a Cool Girl"

With notes of Grenson leather, mashed potato and 'Nana' powder.

 

[melfish]

Apparently 'good girls' (whatever that means) wore Anais Anais and 'bad girls' wore Lou Lou. That she thinks that shows she is influenced by marketing more than anything else

This is the possibly the dumbest thing I've read all week, both that she wrote it and also that someone published it and put it in an actual book

That reminds me, i loved Red by Giorgio back in the 80s.

I was 80% Ysatis and 20% Rive Gauche

The RG wasn't really my vibe, but I was trying to copy my English teacher/mentor/neighbour who wore it religiously

 

[SqualorVictoria]

I'm afraid that I have something even more disturbing to impart.

LouLou is the Rizzo to Anais' Sandy. Apparently

 

[melfish]

I'm afraid that I have something even more disturbing to impart.

LouLou is the Rizzo to Anais' Sandy. Apparently

She did not!

Oh crap, I forget about my brief EL Beautiful period. Ysatis was the mainstay though. It remained by favourite through my 20s, surviving both a flirtation with Issey Miyake and a tawdry affair with patchouli. In fact my aunt continued to buy it for me until very recently when I finally summoned the courage to have "the talk" with her. I'd been giving away unopened boxes of it for years, and still had half a dozen in the back of my cupboard

 

[Stillwater]

I just stared wearing Rive Gauche - been waiting to be old enough to (45). A very inspirational business woman and close family friend of my childhood wore it and I have always loved it.

I am not an inspirational business woman (looks down at gizmo pj bottoms) but smell like the woman you’ll never be, I say.

 

[melfish]

It's part of the "I'm so badass and carefree" attitude - doesn't iron, applys make-up on train because: busy, will never be a proper mum (her words, not mine).

Meanwhile, has 10 million rules, dresses for Leonard, judges the duck out of other women, gets triggered by innocent questions on IG, cannot get over a handful of people on here not thinking she's all that when she literally has thousands of others showering her with compliments every day of her life. So chill, much pistol-packing

 

[MakkaPakka]

*applies*
sorry my typo drives me mad

 

[Badabing101]

I have to laugh at the 'longing for the eighties to end' part

Was that an actual quotation from her book or one of your parodies ? I actually can’t tell the difference

 

[Jelly Bean]

She did not!

Oh crap, I forget about my brief EL Beautiful period. Ysatis was the mainstay though. It remained by favourite through my 20s, surviving both a flirtation with Issey Miyake and a tawdry affair with patchouli. In fact my aunt continued to buy it for me until very recently when I finally summoned the courage to have "the talk" with her. I'd been giving away unopened boxes of it for years, and still had half a dozen in the back of my cupboard

I loved Ysatis, then its stablemate Amarige.
My very first 'grownup' perfume was Ma Griffe. Does anyone else remember that? I literally have no memory now of what it smelled of.
Sali's idea of perfume is so blinkered. Type A woman wears such and such perfume. I seriously think I could wear almost any relatively happily. I might not buy it again but it is always fun trying something completely different. The only one I drew the line at (not that I could afford it) is a Tom Ford. Can't remember which, it was an airport spritz, but it was too bitter for me. Just not woman enough I guess.

 

[Fox Scully]

So many good Beverley Hills perfumes, I wonder what they smell like now. Wings was lovely.
I was a 90s teen, we always had so and exclamation in the locker has coty stopped making perfumes, I was trying to find a talc in boots called L'aimant but its nowhere to be found.

You can always get L’aimant body spray - love it!

 

[Stillwater]

Oh my gosh, Amarige! My mother was really power scenting her way through bollocking 2 kids.