How to Find Your Signature Scent Part 3: Buying Unique Fragrances

Once you start learning what sort of scents you like, it's easier to pick out notes and elements and find different, more unique fragrances than the examples I gave in my last post.  Those scents are great, don't get me wrong, I own several myself, but I think the elusive Signature Scent™ should be something a little more unusual, don't you?

Black Phoenix perfume oil and Imps

One of the greatest resources for unusual, unique fragrances is The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.  I've written about them before and am still loving my Marie perfume oil.  It's violets and tea roses and I get complimented on it all the time!  I'm not sure it's my signature scent (I think I want something a little more in the oriental family), but I'm definitely enjoying it.  Go check out my BPAL article for more information about this fantastic company and the amazing fragrances they offer.  A great way to test their perfumes is to order "Imps", a tiny little sample of the perfume oil for only $3.  You can order up as many as you like and experiment to your heart's content without a real commitment!  Plus they'll also send Imps at random when you order a full size perfume.  Clever!

Lucky Scent samples: Le Labo Rose 31 and Commes de Garcons Daphne

 Another amazing resource for unusual perfume is LuckyScent.com.  I've never even heard of most of the brands and perfumes they offer, so you're guaranteed to find something unusual that no other woman will be wearing.  You can search by fragrance family or notes if you're stumped by the unfamiliar names.  LuckyScent also offers sample sizes of most of the perfumes for $3-5 so you can try before you buy!  It's particularly great because what they offer tends to be on the more expensive side.  I was okay with ordering up a $25 perfume oil from BPAL before I actually tried it, but I definitely wouldn't be cool with dropping $270 on the perfume Daphne Guinness created without trying it first (I did try it, and I think it's for the sort of woman who wears Chanel No. 5, which unfortunately isn't me...yet).

The best way to get a truly unique fragrance is to mix scents with wild abandon!  Layer two or three fragrances at once for a fragrance to suit you and only you.  This isn't for beginners and will require even more experimentation, but how fun would it be to have your very own unique blend?  I've loved Demeter's Fragrance Library ever since I read about them when I first started obsessing over magazines (quite a long time ago!).  They have scents for almost anything you can imagine, and are designed to be layered and mixed.  Personally I'm thinking Lava Rock plus Kamikaze would be a winner for me, but you could literally come up with thousands of combinations.


So tell me!  What are your favorite scents?  Have you found a signature yet, or are you still looking, like me?  Do you remember your very first fragrance? (Mine was Tommy Girl.  And some perfume from The Gap! Oh yes!)  Do you relegate scents to certain eras in your life? (Tommy Girl will always smell like 6th grade, while I wore Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue during high school).  What perfume would you never, ever wear again?  I wanna know!