to all the perfumes i've loved before
as someone who loves clean, green, berry & floral scents, and some spring scents
Here are all the perfumes I have used and loved in the last ten years, from fourteen to (almost) twenty-four years old. I love clean scents that are not too heavy, leathery, or woody. Because of this, I gravitate towards green, floral, and berry scents. If this sounds like you, keep scrolling! Be warned: this has a lot of perfumes from Diptyque and Byredo.
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the sephora haul era [high school]
I had a phase where I was spending every single cent of my allowance and earnings on Sephora. It’s a time I look back on with great regret because it was irresponsible and a huge waste of money, but it at least allowed me to discover what I liked and disliked about makeup and perfumes.
MARC JACOBS dot
This was my first perfume ever—I got it my sophomore year of high school and I used it all the way until the end of the summer before my senior year. It definitely kickstarted my love for all of my current favorite notes. While I now like notes that have a bit more depth, I love how linear and simple this perfume is. It’s sweet but not overly sweet to the point where it’s headache-inducing. Would I wear this now? No, but I would definitely gift this to my sister, who is in her early teens.
PHILOSOPHY amazing grace
When I was 16, I thought this was what a grown-up would smell like, and I still stand by that. I got a sample from Sephora and used every drop of it. It smells elegant, powdery, and clean. It’s a pretty linear and safe scent and could even be called boring, but I definitely loved this perfume so much (but also wore it when I was way too young). It’s like a soft and soapy iris/rose scent. I still have an almost new bottle of this that I restocked a few years ago, but it’s fallen down in terms of ranking because it suddenly started smelling a bit too grandma-like for me.
BY ROSIE JANE james
This single perfume highlighted the worst part of my junior year of high school, aka SAT and AP exam season. I was getting maybe twelve hours of sleep a week max, and had perpetual dark circles under my eyes. I couldn’t smell this for a good year because I would just remember the crippling exhaustion I felt in my bones during the last two years of my school. But this is a very linear, muskier version of Jo Malone’s Nectarine Blossom and Honey.
CHLOÉ chloé
While everyone was dousing themselves in Flowerbomb to the point where they would be highly flammable, I used Chloé. I’m not a fan of strong amber or patchouli scents (anything sickly sweet that shoots right to your head), so I liked (and still like) perfumes that are more linear in notes and don’t have a crazy strong lasting scent. This scent, while incredibly common, is popular for a reason. It’s clean, inoffensive, and pretty. I wore this most days from the summer leading up to my college freshman year to fall semester of sophomore year.