Patchouli

I love it too. I’ve always found myself attracted to hippie men probably because they reek of it.

I don't hate it but it does verge on moldy for me.

it must be like cilantro where some people have something genetically wrong with them that makes it terrible for them. Patchouli smells like rotten sweaty crotch mixed with fried onions to me.

Try Patchouli Intense. Expensive but worth it.

I freaking LOVE Patchouli

Mmmmm.

Rotten, sweaty crotch w/fried onions.

I remember back in college burning patchouli incense sticks and thinking I was so sophisticated. 15 years later, I bought another pack of them on a whim and lit one in the living room. I managed about 10 minutes before I was dousing it in the sink. Not my thing anymore.

i love it becuase it takes me back 50 years

Oh, I love the smell of patchouli - reminds me of my friend's cool little cottage

Nag champa or frankincense for incense!

Which smells better?

Sandalwood or patchouli?

Not even close. Sandalwood.

I was in college in the early 70's when patchoulli was suddenly all the rage. When I smell it now it reminds me of tye-dye t-shirts, bell bottoms, guys with long hair and beads, baggies of weed for $10, and lots and lots of sex.

It's very easy to grow as a houseplant. I'm very careful about wearing patchouli as a personal fragrance, since so many people have such a strong negative reaction. I wear Patchouli Patch from L'Artisan sometimes, but rarely in public.

When I know I'll be alone for three or four days, I put a dab on my chest after a shower so only I can smell it.

I don't want to be ridiculed for wearing it. But a very faint whiff of it now and again just reminds me of better days.

I fucking hate Patchouli, it totally smells like mold to me. If there is a person wearing it, I either have to internally plug my nose or walk away, because it's a very visceral reaction to it.

It's Tannis Root, my dear.

I thought patchouli was a combination of herbs, not a single plant. Good to know!

R18 it's a joke what r17 posted. Tannis root is not a real thing. It is what the old witches gave Rosemary to wear in the charm in Rosemary's Baby.

Is it like congee?

Tell us about your patchouli experiences at Mitchfest, OP. Did the scent waft from under your vagina cape as you twirled?

I put a little on my taint, but only when I know I’m going to be in public. The reaction to the patchouli, my balls, asshole and sweat is too much for everyone.

Zum soap's patchouli smells fresh and clean. The oil from the hippy store is pretty grungy.

This one girl I knew back in the Seventies?

She'd look at you so cooly,

And her eyes'd shine like the moon and the sea,

And she'd come in incense and patchouli.

I forget what year that was. The monkey? The dragon? The rat?

After this thread, I went out and bought some Nag Champa.

Thanks, assholes.

It's disgusting, but never tell someone that directly because it will launch them on the path of patchouli evangelism on a scale not seen except in lamp evangelists ("Oh, you don't hate lamb! That's ridiculous! You just haven't had my lamb!" and for the rest of your life you will dodge a thousand invitations to eat something you can smell a mile away and find revolting.)

I associate it with stinky white people who smoke too much weed, wear dreadlocks and diaphonous, shapeless clothes, and sour, boiled potato faces.

Love it. Don’t care about the pearl clutching Republicants who feign disgust. Fuck off, cunts.

Hate it. I associate it with unwashed pearl string curtains and old Hippies. It is vulgar.

My fave scent ever!

hippie piss

Completely dreadful aroma.

And as far as incense goes, the only decent incense is Palo Santo - the rest smell tacky.

Here is some professional perfumery advice from someone who makes colognes and perfumes.

Patchouli comes in different grades. If you do not like regular patchouli essential oil, try the the aged patchouli. Be aware that the aged is much more expensive.

Never put straight undiluted essential oils of any kind on your skin. Dilute them with ethyl alcohol or fractionated coconut oil first.

Do not use commercial perfumes and colognes because they are poison and full of artificial chemicals.

Patchouli is all about mixtures. Someone mentioned patchouli and sandalwood. Well try mixing them. The mixture is fantastic. The one thing about sandalwood is that it is now an endangered species and the genuine thing is hard to find and very expensive. If it is cheap, then it is fake.

Try mixing patchouli with ambrette absolute. Keep in mind ambrette is very expensive.

I love patchouli and it is one of the most important ingredients in perfumery, both commercial and amateur, but remember that anyone that knows what they are doing would never use it alone, but always mixed with other fragrance ingredients.

Patchouli got me through the 70s and much of the 80s. Find a small vial of patchouli essential oil, check the scent to make sure you like it, and for $10, or so, you are good to go for a long, long time. I love finding a man who is brave enough to wear patchouli. And if he chants in the morning, even better!

[quote] Do not use commercial perfumes and colognes because they are poison and full of artificial chemicals.

How commercial are we talking? Just, ‘anything from a drug or department store’? Or, ‘anything you can buy as a bottled edp/edt’? Are niche perfume oils ok?

Dyke thread.

I wouldn't wear it as a cologne or anything, but I love to put it in an oil diffuser or a few drops on my pillow. I really love the smell of it. You can also mix it with something else in your oil diffuser.

I absolutely LOVE Patchouli. It calms me, actually. I make my own incense, and to open that jar and take a whiff lowers my blood pressure. It's wonderful. I'd love to dump the contents of that jar on the floor, and roll around in it. I love it that much. Folks often say "it smells like dirt". Well, I guess I like the smell of dirt (which I do, actually).

Patchouli is fine. My favorites are Nag Champa and Dragon's Blood

[quote]I make my own incense, and to open that jar and take a whiff lowers my blood pressure. It's wonderful. [bold]I'd love to dump the contents of that jar on the floor, and roll around in it.[/bold]

Quite possibly the most disgusting thing ever posted on Datalounge.

My husband hates it. I love it. We have a divided household.

I wouldn't let you in the house, r40.

[Quote] [R18] it's a joke what [R17] posted. Tannis root is not a real thing

I know that. I was referring to Pogestemon.

I'd like to have a plant.

I wonder if I can buy one at a greenhouse or would I have to grow it by seeds?

R32 I use drops of lavender oil on paper cloths in my dryer to make my laundry smell good. Is that toxic?

R32 what you are doing with the lavender oil in your dryer is not toxic.

I concur with r32 - it's caveat emptor when it comes to buying essential oils and incense. There's a lot of crap out there. Do not buy any shizzle from the 2nd hand/thrift stores, which often have a big display of this stuff. Go to a proper apothecary or mixer. There's one close to me who makes his own (altho he is only open at his own whim, and one time I walked in the shop and his chiropractor was just packing up his portable table - quite a character). Anyhow, visit a good quality shop to determine the scents you like. After that, you can buy online. But support local if you can!

My favorite diffuser blend is 5 drops lemon, 3 drops ylang ylang, and 2 drops patchouli. It reminds me slightly of Jean Nate, which is a bit embarrassing, but the combo really is rather good in your diffuser.

Patchouli reminds me of the times I’d sit behind a sexy Rasta Man on an Oakland city bus.

R47 "what's rude is that Jean Nate body-splash you're trying to pass off as perfume."

So my Spiritual Sky brand is shitty?

R50, I don't know about Spiritual Sky brand. You can usually tell by smelling one or two different varieties what is richer and cleaner. It would be similar to the diff between Eau de cologne and perfume, etc. Ideally you want the full bodied one, not the watered down/cut one.

Sum Dragons Blood soap is amazing.

I don't like the odor of patchouli.

If patchouli is in the air, can a leather vest wearin' Doberman sportin' dyke be far behind?

As a younger dyke, I favoured Vetiver.

As an old hippie, patchouli will always have a strong under-smell of body odor. It always smelled like a BO coverup.

I used to hate patchouli because I live in Portland, and so many twentysomething use it to mask either the bad smells of weed or body odor. And bad patchouli still always makes me think of that.

But this last year during the shutdown I got really interested in fragrances, and discovered some great ones that are heavily based on patchouli--Patch Flash by Tauerville, Patchouli Intense by Niocolai (mentioned above), Psychedelique by Jovoy, and my favorite of all, Patchouli by Reminscence. In this latter one the patchouli smells much like dense rich chocolate cake.

Many scents are vile when you smell cheap versions of them--vanilla is another I used to think fairly vile (based mainly on smelling cheap vanilla candles and household scents) until I smelled what some really sophisticated perfumers can do with it. Same with pineapple.

It smells dirty, but like old hippies.

It smells like Zendaya's nappy braids.

I hate that I like it.

The flower is called pogostemon.

Saying you hate patchouli because of what you've smelled from hippie patchouli incense sticks is like saying you hate the smell of lemons based on Lemon Pledge.

Givenchy Gentleman smells like patchouli.

R2 - I thought it smelled like mildew until my roommate brought home a set from Sabon (a French company that apparently only has a shop in NYC back home) where a dash of patchouli was added to lavender and a bit of vanilla. It's a good smell in winter because the vanilla warms the cool smell of the lavender and the patchouli adds a dash of perfume.

If Patchouli’s in the air can a greasy lesbian be far behind?

Patchouli is considered the darkest and earthiest naturally occurring perfume ingredient. It became popular in Europe in the early 19th century when packages of clothing and fabric were sent from the East Indies packed in patchouli leaves to keep them fresh on the sea voyage--women loved how the fabrics smelled when they were unpacked.

Madonna had her "Like a Prayer" album packaged with raw patchouli, which caused a renaissance in interest in that scent at the time.

One of my hobbies is perfumery.

I mainly make men's colognes.

Patchouli is one of the most important ingredients in perfumery.

The secret to using patchouli is to mix it with other ingredients.

The main cologne that I am making right now on a regular basis uses patchouli plus 11 other ingredients, however the patchouli is 25% of the fragrance ingredients contained in the cologne.

I would say that I am amongst the lovers of patchouli, and have been ever since about 1970, when I used it "straight" as was the custom of hippies in that era.

One of my favorite fragrances of all time is called Aromatics Elixir from Clinique. It has incredible earthy patchouli. It came out fifty years ago and smells like the year 1971 distilled into a bottle. It's too flowery-feminine for me to wear myself, but I love it when women wear it--I feel like they're about to burst out into a Carole King song from "Tapestry."

Having somehow survived college in free-wheeling 70's, patchouli brings back all sorts of memories whenever I smell it now. Every headshop in every college town sold it as incense. Patchouli mixed with the smoke from burning joints were the smells most associated with rock concerts and campus protests. If someone had marketed "the official fragrance of Woodstock", it would have been equal parts patchouli, grass, urine and body odor.

Now I wanna see if Givenchy Gentleman is availble on ebay.

I used to hate it but now it reminds me of San Francisco (which I miss).

It smells cheap and low-rent. Reminds me of used record stores and pride marches.

"... it would have been equal parts patchouli, grass, urine and body odor"

Michfest?

I like it in perfumery but don't like the smell of straight hippie patchouli oil. It does smell like BO. It also blooms and opens up A LOT in the heat, so I tend to reserve its use when wearing fragrance, to cooler months.

[quote] Now I wanna see if Givenchy Gentleman is availble on ebay.

Givenchy Gentleman keeps being drastically re-formulated. You probably would not recognize it now from what it once was.

R68 - you sound like an interesting eldergay. How do you get ingredients and even think up such a cool hobby?

Givenchy Gentleman has not included patchouli in its note pyramid in years.

Which is such a shame, since it used to be known as THE men's patchouli fragrance.

It was also famous as a leather fragrance, but they also took out the leather.

Oui cheri.

I have a couple diffuser blends I love. One is rose, patchouli and lime, and the other is lemon, patchouli and ylang ylang. The one with rose gains an earthier, almost masculine scent with the patchouli. I call it my dirty rose blend (*eye roll*). The one with lemon and ylang ylang, oddly enough, reminds me of Jean Nate. I don’t like patchouli on its own, though. For me it needs to be mixed with a heady floral or citrus.

Polo is the pricier version of patchouli.

They're both disgusting and never come out of your clothes.

R68, I make my own scents, too!

I like patchouli mixed with other things. It's VERY strong on its own

It shmellsh dirty, like shex!

About 50% of all male fragrances have patchouli in them. A good portion of female ones do as well.

A lot of fragrance houses turned to patchouli after the International Ragrance Association (IFRA) strictly restricted hoiw much oakmoss could be used in perfume a little over ten years ago. Patchouli had already been an important element in perfumes, but it became even more so because it had to replace oakmoss in many much beloved fragrances, particularly in the chypre genre which is one of the most popular, most enduring, and most loved of all genres--it is to fragrance what the sonnet is to poetry. (The chypre genre include such mainstays in the perfume business as Mitsuoko, Eau Sauvage, Chanel Pour Monsieur, Aramis, Monsieur de Givenchy, Aventus, etc.--even Stetson!). Patchouli was already often a component to the chypre genre, but oakmoss was an absolute essential for the base; the perfumers had to figure out how to replace most of the oakmoss and so using more patchouli often helped enormously.

Some reformulated chypres now try to cover the lack of oakmoss by using the tiny whisper of oakmoss allowed to present a little bit of its scent; but other frargrances just don't even try to evoke it, and instead just use patchouli. My favorite this summeri s one called Paris-Deauville by Chanel--it opens with bergamot (the other most standard note in a chypre) and orange and basil on the top, and has florals in the heart, but the base is all patchouli. It's very refreshing, but the patchouli also makes it rich and lush too. It smells also orgasmically good.

I think a lot also contain vetiver in the base, R85.

Hello #77, above:

I can't remember how I got into the hobby of perfumery, but it was probably to avoid having to buy cheap shit commercial cologne which is full of artificial and dangerous chemicals. Remember, your skin is the largest organ in your body, and you should not be spreading artificial fragrance ingredients from commercial products on it.

As far as obtaining ingredients for perfumery I would reccomend Perfumer Supply House, Perfumers Apprentice, Liberty Natural Products, and Eden Botanicals. They are all USA based.

To learn more about perfumery go to the "Basenotes Forum", and then within that forum, to the "Fragrance DIY" subforum. It is a bit advanced, and a lot of discussion concerning fragrance chemicals versus natural fragrance ingredients, but still there is a lot to be learned there.

To further learn about perfumery use your favorite search engine. I learned from Basenotes Forum and internet searches.

I wish I could post my formula mentioned in my post #68 above, but it is, at this point, a guarded secret, you might say. I daresay it smells fantastic. I am using some of the most expensive fragrance ingredients in the world in the formula, but it is still affordable, since I am making it myself.

As far as patchouli goes I am using the one sold on Perfumers Apprentice, and also, an aged patchouli from J. Steel who sells through Perfumers Apprentice or by phone call only to his California location (I believe).

Note, that I only use natural ingredients, and ethyl alcohol of course. Note, do not use any old alcohol. It must be ethyl and a good source is from the liquor store: Everclear 190 proof. It must be the 190 proof variety.

i am burning some nag champa now

Swirly stoned delirious

I still think that shit stinks.

There are many kinds of patchouli. MANY. Also there is natural and somewhat refined and also synthetic.

Often in GOOD French and Italian fragrances they have a green sweet light patchouli note that isn't much like hippy patchouli (which I like as well). And even in intense patchouli, there is a huge range.

If you are getting it from fragrances and not "natural oils" - some nice patchoulis include Givenchy Gentleman, many from Farmacia SS. Annunziata, and good old (womens not mens) Reminiscence - which is often discounted to 20 bucks a bottle and strikes an acceptable middle road to be very wearable and polite.

If you can score an OLD formulation of the original Gentleman you're in for a treat.

There are MANY new Gentlemans, but the one by Nathalie Lorson and Olivier Cresp, two masters, is good. The cologne is good as well (same perfumers) but its not heavy on patch.

Nathalie Lorson hasn't made a scent I can't respect and mostly enjoy.

She in fact made two budget scents for David Beckham, and they are both really pleasing and high value for the price, under 20 bucks online. Classic Touch, and Beyond Forever. She works brilliantly with violet, which is in many masculine fragrances and isn't the easiest scent to work with.

Dried patchouli leaves smell better than fresh. The plant is not difficult to grow. It does need plenty of sun. The flowers are fragrant.

I like old fashioned Lilac water that barbers used to use. I found a bottle of it that had been made recently. It did not smell the same. That smell has something so sexy about it! It is refined, soft yet masculine at the same time.

This thread destroys erections

Taint smell is heavenly too. If you could put it in a bottle! (they used to be able to)

The skynik cannot smell its own odor.

When I was in college in the early 90s I used to put a dab of patchouli on my neck and a dab under my taint. I had no shortage of admirers of both sexes.

[quote] When I was in college in the early 90s I used to put a dab of patchouli on my neck and a dab under my taint.

This is why your nickname with all the frats was Taint Misbehavin.

[quote]Which smells better?Sandalwood or patchouli?

You don't have to choose if you buy Heritage from Guerlain. Those are two of the dominant notes, and it's beautifully blended. Very elegant--nice for the office or for evenings.

You can get it for about $54 for a 3.3 oz. bottle on ebay. It's very elegant--it's supposedly Prince Edwrard's signature scent.

Love it. I buy the patchouli incense.

I just bought a small bottle of Patchouli Intense by Nicolai--30 ml for $70. It's expensive but you only need one or two spritzes because it's parfum strength, so it should last as long as a bottle 3X its size.

So gorgeous--patchouli, rose, geranium, and lavender.