Cheryl Shops

Website of the week
I will admit to being a bit of a perfume snob--not price-wise, but exclusivity-wise. For example, I love that, pre-Lovely, Sarah Jessica Parker wore Skin Musk by Bonne Bell. I, on the other hand, wore Dolce & Gabbana (the original, in the red bottle) for years, and while it didn't appear to be very popular in Chicago, I moved here and started smelling it on women I passed on the street. Now, I realize that unless I get a custom-blended (and ridiculously expensive) scent, not ever smelling my perfume on someone else isn't really an option. I will never "steal" another person's perfume, especially if they're a friend or someone I see on a regular basis, but if someone asks me what I'm wearing, I tell them, because, well, I'm not a very good liar. I rotate between two fragrances from same designer (I'll give you a hint--he's French), and so far, I haven't had to give them up. I do have two back-ups in case that does happen, but it's always good to have more. And the more obscure my back-ups are, the better. Enter LuckyScent, a website that's for true fragrance junkies. Carrying everything from limited-edition Comme des Garçons perfumes to obscure Italian and French scents. You can shop by brand if you're looking for something in particular, or--and I think this is the fun part--you can shop by notes, everything from "floral fruity" to "warm/earthy" and even "foody" for those of you who like to smell like, well, food. The cool thing is that I went straight to "floral spicy" and didn't recognize any of the scents. Hello, obscurity!


Les 4 Saisons - Hiver has pretty much every fragrance note I love, so it's definitely a contender.



tiptoeing through the chambers of the moon has a name that's so great (and a bottle to match), you can't help but be intrigued.


I also checked out the nifty Luckyscents astrological guide, which recommends scents based on your sign, and that's how I came upon the promising-sounding Omniscent 0.96 by YOSH.


Now, you're probably thinking, "This is all very interesting, and perhaps useful, but I'm not dropping $130 on a perfume when I don't really know what it smells like." Which brings me to an excellent feature of LuckyScent: You can order a sample of every fragrance they sell. Prices range from $2 for Red Flower scents to $8 for the rare Untitled #1 by Josh Han, but most are $3 or $4. And if that's not enough, there are also reviews posted for each fragrance by true perfume junkies, who often include tips on layering complimentary scents (which seems like too much work to me, but is interesting nonetheless). Shipping is an affordable $3 for samples or $6.95 for everything else, via FedEx Ground, but since LuckyScent has recently opened a real bricks-and-mortar store in L.A., I'll definitely be visiting it next week when I'm there on vacation. Because, well, it's an excuse to go shopping, and sometimes I just like to see where my nose takes me.