Cheap smells for men that don't smell cheap - suggestions please for a reader on a budget!

Grooming Tiger ~ Source Wikimedia Commons (byKoshy Koshy)

Most of the blog-related mail I get these days is from perfume houses inviting me to try their range, or from PR companies trying to get me to write to order on this or that product for money, or to develop 'collaborative synergies' with brands, that you just know would amount to the same thing. These I bat off pretty sharpish, as you can imagine.

Then just as I was sitting down to marshal my thoughts about Angel Muse, an email came in from a male reader, whom I shall call P, inquiring about budget scents for men that I would recommend.

"Can you recommend a good value men's fragrance? Quite a short question I know, but one which is ever so perplexing when on a budget."

I liked P right off the bat for his use of 'perplexing', as you can also imagine. P didn't say what styles of fragrance he wears at the moment, but maybe his taste is a broad church and price is the main driver.

P's approach to me is quite timely as it happens, as only the other day I found myself moved to comment on a post entitled 'Shared Atmospheres' on A Perfume Blog about the rights and wrongs of curbing the wearing of fragrance in public spaces. I came down on the side of freedom, even at the expense of being personally affronted by other people's perfume choices.

"And I do smell a LOT of things I don't care for in the general ambient air, as much on men as women it must be said."

Source: Harper's Weekly via Wikimedia Commons

The distinction I would make is that whereas there is ample choice out there for women, so in theory it is easy enough to smell delightful on a shoestring, I wouldn't say the same is generally true for men. There is a lot of what I would call 'sport colognes' or 'gym & tonic'-type men's colognes, in the same general vein as Chanel Bleu, but nowhere near as classy. A chap serving in my local Coop was wearing one such scent the the other day, and his sillage in and around the checkout area nearly drove me to do my grocery shopping online! So my point is that it is harder to pick out decent options in the men's category that are also a real bargain.

And it seems Blacknall agrees:

"A larger proportion of men seem to be wearing aggressive fragrance (actually it's not fragrance properly speaking so much as olfactory artillery)."

So while I am not for a minute suggesting that any of the colognes P currently owns are remotely of that ilk, the relative scarcity of non-offensive options at the less spendy end of the spectrum makes the search that bit more of a challenge. But I immediately recalled a few fragrances I have sniffed on male friends and liked, only to learn to my surprise when I asked them what they were wearing that they were in fact pretty darn cheap, and clearly punching above their price tag. Examples of this are Activist by the Body Shop and Lynx Excite, which I even felt moved to blog about, here and here respectively!

So I wrote back to P this morning with the preliminary results of my brainstorm, and of a quick google of men's style/grooming blogs.

"Thanks for your email - that's a short but big question, hehe, as it depends so much on what styles of perfume you like and how much you want to pay.

And to be honest, I mostly cover women's fragrances, but I could ask around for you from the male blogging community. Or if you are a member of Basenotes, which is mostly populated by men, you could lob in a question there.

I personally like L'Occitane Eau des Baux on men (a vanillic woody amber number), and have smelt one of the Body Shop's range on a friend that impressed me - Activist, also an oriental. See, that is the style I like. ;) Also thought Lynx Excite (Axe in the US) wasn't bad on another friend. 

If you like Oud, there's one in the Library of Fragrance / Demeter range that is cheap, and Jovan Intense Oud is a drugstore scent that smells like a poor man's Roja Dove at a hundredth of the price.

Bottle kindly donated by Liz Moores

I have heard good things of the Paul Smith range, but I can't tell you which.

And it is worth cruising the perfume aisle of T K Maxx for discounted scents from Penhaligon's or L'Artisan.

Check out this link - it mentions Activist I see! And a Paul Smith! I can endorse the 4711.

Also I have seen a few mentions of Grey Flannel by Geoffrey Beene, and remember that as good. 

Good luck in your hunt and let me know if you would like me to approach anyone else."

Source: Wikimedia Commons (by Nevit Dilmen)

So that is where I am up to so far, and on a whim I decided to share P's inquiry with readers in a blog post to see if anyone has some more suggestions. Roger & Gallet Jean-Marie Farina just popped into my head, and P could of course also play around with the Library of Fragrance / Demeter range for days, on account of its enormous selection...featuring everything from oud to marshmallow to wet shed and beyond!

Oh, and if P likes Hugo BOSS the original, Lidl's X-Bolt by Bellini is a fantastic dupe at £3.99. Here's my review of that one, that caught the attention of the Daily Telegraph, no less. ;)

Then I see Old Spice is also mentioned in the link I sent P - the one and only scent I ever remember my father wearing, or at least keeping a bottle of the stuff on the bathroom shelf. I wasn't at all close to him, mind, so there was no question of me ever sitting on his lap and inhaling the smell. He wasn't a smoker either, so you can forget any Proustian pipe tobacco associations, that other friends associate with their fathers. So yes, nothing retro and paternal to bring to the party.

Editor's note: I cannot believe I have just spent an hour googling pictures of three childhood homes in Belfast, one with an epically bad avocado suite, above which Father's Old Spice bottle would have been perched - sadly I am unable to fetch up any photos from Rightmove or Lettings sites that do justice to its monstrous green splendour.

And I am assuming that P would prefer colognes that are overtly marketed to men. I say that, for we might otherwise collectively think to recommend some feminine fragrances a man could carry off with panache and aplomb, especially once you get into the realms of niche, though for cost reasons we are of course not going there. ;)

Aha, I see Panache is also an aldehydic perfume!, formerly by Lentheric, and reviewed by I Scent You A Day. I don't believe there is a fragrance called 'Aplomb' or 'Budget', or I would be tempted to pop them on the list too.

A Bonkers Round Up Of Perfume Bottle Imagery - Real And Imagined!

Source: turkotek.com

Topic advisory - this is a frivolous and palate-cleansing post - the blog equivalent of what my father used to call a "frippery", namely a gewgaw or trinket that was as desirable as it was insubstantial, and on which he used to counsel me most strenuously not to spend my pocket money.  But of course I did, every week, and never lived to regret a single one of my horde of spangly purses and Itty Bitty erasers.   I would call them "rubbers", but I don't wish to cause an international semantic incident.

Now, Olfactoria has a gorgeous series of posts entitled "Finding Hidden Beauty", in which she compiles a montage of photos of aesthetic objects glimpsed on walks around her native Vienna.  Vienna is of course a rich hunting ground for such serendipitous sights - if you walk round Stafford, you are more likely to bump into our hideous telephone exchange building everywhere you turn, though a bit of ferreting will uncover some architectural gems from the medieval era and even earlier.

Stafford's telephone exchange - more a case of finding obvious ugliness!

So this post has some crossover with that altogether more elegant series of Birgit's, though it was finally triggered by the latest of Undina's postcards from her trips away, specifically by a comment made by Jordan River of The Fragrant Man about how he had spotted a heart shape on a hill in Undina's photo.

"I searched and searched the photo, every bush, every blade. When I looked up I saw the heart. Now I can’t miss it. A clever and brilliant composition."

You see, I have quietly been collecting images of perfume bottles spotted in unexpected contexts, and thought that I might now have a small quorum worth posting.  They comprise a mixture of unusual representations of actual perfume bottles AND objects that have nothing whatsoever to do with fragrance, but where I discerned a perfume bottle shape, much like Jordan with his hillside heart.

So, starting with the actual and moving through to the imaginary(!), here are the highlights of my collection to date.

These quirky watercolours of patriotic perfume bottles are by Bridget Davies, the artist behind my perfume-themed cushions, the topic of a previous post.

And here is a tattoo by Brooklyn-based John Mohawk, featured in the tattoo magazine "Things and Ink".  I think as tattoos go - and Freddie of Smellythoughts can confirm - this one demonstrates exceptional artistry.  I wouldn't want to spring for one myself, but it is pretty spectacular by any yardstick.

Source: Basenotes

My heart leapt when I spied these cute knitted perfume bottles on Basenotes a while back - I am not clear whether they are actual perfume bottles wearing knitted jacket facsimiles of their bottles, or whether the whole thing is knitted, maybe with some stuffing inside.

And ooh look, here are some crocheted ones by artist Kate Talbot, who came up with the idea as a clever way of illustrating cosy "cashmere wrap"-style scents for an article in The Stylist magazine:

So does anyone have any felt or woven flacons?

Speaking of erasers, there are even ones shaped like perfume bottles - admittedly in an assortment of rather garish colours, but the thought is there at least.

Source: Novelty Eraser's Ebay shop

Next up are a few pictures of imaginary perfume bottles, starting with my friend Lizzie's earring:

Lizzie's lobe, kindly snapped to order by her son Fabian

And finally, a series of "salt bag" rugs from Persia.  Apparently shepherds carry rock salt to feed to their sheep. There are certain times of year when shepherds need the sheep to drink and retain more water, which of course salt encourages them to do, much like pub owners putting bowls of peanuts on the bar.  For a full account of sheep migration patterns and the whys and wherefores of salted and unsalted flocks, there is a helpful explanation here on this persian carpet website.

Source: rugrabbit.com

This one below is shaped a bit like a Ferre, wouldn't you say?

Source: rugrabbit.com

And what about this one - do those horizontal lines not remind you vividly of the stripier end of the Paul Smith range?

Okay then, a somewhat faded Paul Smith with added mad hair...

Oh, and would you believe I still have a spangly purse - bought in the last 15 years no less, whatever that says about me.

This purse is dedicated to euro shrapnel ie coins of 20 cents and under

I would be very interested to hear of any other oddball perfume-themed artefacts or imaginary perfume bottles you may have spotted, so please feel free to email any pictures to me at flittersniffer at gmail dot com.  If I gather enough in, some day I will run another selection of "reader finds" plus anything else I come across in the meantime!

Photo of Stafford's telephone exchange from geograph.co.uk, photo of Ferre bottle from talkingperfume.com, photo of Paul Smith bottle from cheapperfume.co.uk