The Scented Hound

Perfume blog with abbreviated perfume reviews & fragrance reviews.


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Revamping The Scented Hound

It’s been around six months since I started blogging.  It’s been fun, a bit time-consuming and somewhat challenging.  I don’t consider myself a writer.  I have never been someone who longed to write the great American novel.  I guess this just gives me an outlet for my small percentage of creativity.  However, in reading other blogs since I have noted that there is a wide spectrum of writing styles.  Some are full of a great deal of personality, some are artistic, some are intellectual, some are just factual.  Where do I fit in?  I can tell you this, my Midwestern roots really come out in my posts.  They are no-frills, to the point and anything but lofty.  I grew up in a  “just give me the facts and forget the fluff” world and I believe that shows.  In fact, I can appreciate creative writing, but to be honest I get a bit tired of some posts cause they go on and on waxing poetically.  I was thinking about this and my mood towards some posts are like the I Love Lucy episode where Lucy pretends to be the Maharincess of Franistan and she tires of the Ricky’s bowing and singing.  Her hand gesture is priceless.  But I digress…I’m sure many people think the same of my posts and that’s just fine with me.  That’s what I love about the blogging world, there is something for everybody.

In looking back at the last six months, one of the problems that I see in my reviews is that they are all starting to sound the same.  I believe the largest reason for this is because of my un-educated nose. I can’t really discern what each note smells like and that is a big frustration.  Additionally, I find that translating what my nose smells to a descriptor can be really difficult.  But the fact that I’m not a writer, nor a fragrance expert is not going to deter me. I do have a nose and I know how to use it, so I am going to try something new in the way that I approach my reviews.  I like order, so I’m going to be much more orderly and uniform with my content.  Starting with my next post I’m going to break up the reviews in the following sections:

  1. What I Smell – Notes
  2. What it Smells Like – This could be anything from petroleum to sunshine
  3. Three Adjectives to Describe the Fragrance
  4. Bone Rating

We’ll see how this goes.  If this doesn’t work well, then another re-vamp will be on its way in the near future.  But again, that’s the great thing about the blogging world, you can change and modify at your hearts whim!  Thanks for stopping by!


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Mary Kay and the Sick Puppy

From my last post, you’ll note that I had a wonderful weekend cleaning up from a storm on Friday.  Well, to top the weekend off, I found that the office was closed so I got another day off.  Yippeee!!!  Not so fast.  The gods have made sure that I don’t enjoy the day off by giving me a doozy of a summer cold or flu or something of that sort.  In other words, I feel like crap.  I’m never sick, so like most men, I am basically a huge baby.

At the same time, my husband has a week-long conference that he has to work at.  In all around 10 days straight.  Poor thing, he has it worse than I do.  At yesterday’s conference, he spoke to a senior rep with Mary Kay cosmetics who provided him with a few samples of their men’s colognes.  So with stuffed nosed, I’m going to try to give some quick reviews of these fragrances.

MK High Intensity:  MKHI goes on fresh and spicy.  It’s almost aquatic in its initial presence.  The scent then quickly moves into a woody tea scent.  And finally, it morphs into almost a vanilla amber scent.  The end result is very nice.  MKHI is a little complex while staying safe and comfortable.  Good for work or for a night out.

From the Mary Kay website:  This irresistible men’s fragrance is an ambery oriental with intriguing top notes of icy black fennel and silver sage heightened by crushed coffee beans. The fragrance demands attention with notes of living dianthus, Darjeeling black tea and dreamy violet leaves. Royal king wood, a Mary Kay exclusive, adds rich intensity to this men’s cologne.

Domain:  This scent is very linear.  From the website it says the ingredients are lavender and oakmoss.  To me this is a bit synthetic.  I believe it’s targeted to the older man.  I can see that.  However, it is missing a bit of oomph which would have been nice to make this more commanding.

Velocity:  As Domain was targeted to the older crowd, Velocity is obviously targeted to the younger and more sporty crowd.  Off the bat, Velocity has a rush of citrus and fresh green.   It’s sharp and invigorating and I could see this being easy to wear.  Notes for Velocity aren’t listed on the Mary Kay website.

In all, for the price point (nothing over $38 for 2.5oz), I think that these Mary Kay men’s fragrances are a decent bet.  Out of the three, I rank MKHI the best, with Velocity and Domain coming in next in that order.

Let’s hope giving these 3 colognes a sniff will help to get my nose feeling better. I hate being a sick puppy!


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Bombay Bling by Neela Vermeire Creations

I was all set not to like Bombay Bling.  The weekend started off with temperature of low 100s.  Then Friday night a storm came through bringing 75 mile an hour winds with it.  Saturday I cleaned up the yard from downed limbs and I had to clean up the shattered glass from my broken patio table (getting bits of glass out of the lawn is a time consuming task…but I had to ensure that the neighborhood fox and the squirrels don’t cut their paws on the glass!).  It’s Sunday and it’s still around 100 and I’m almost finished working on the lawn.  In other words, it has not been a fun weekend.  I always worry that when I’m in this mood, writing reviews might not be the best thing to do.  In any case, here we go…

Bombay Bling is a hard fragrance for me to describe.  It goes on sweet and fruity, but in a very subdued and subtle way.  Maybe it’s because there’s a tinge of pepper that hides behind the top notes, or maybe its the base of warmth that keeps the sweetness under control.  In any case, the opening stage of this fragrance is lovely and embracing.  In fact the nice thing about this scent is that as it wears the opening doesn’t really disappear it just becomes a bit more subtle. From the name of this fragrance, I was expecting some over the top, loud creation.  Instead, Bombay Bling is the exact opposite; it’s fresh, light and reminds me of purity, optimism and sheer happiness.

OK, Bombay Bling managed to eat through my crusty weekend veneer.  As I need to get back to the yard work, I’ll just leave with you with the notes.  I’ll be coming back to Bombay Bling later.  This is truly a wonderful surprise.

Bombay Bling Notes:

Mango, lychee, blackcurrant, cardamom, cumin, cistus, Turkish rose, jasmine sambac, ylang-ylang, tuberose, plumeria, gardenia, patchouli, tobacco, sandalwood, cedar, vanilla

  • Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 possible bones
  • Scent: Oriental Floral
  • Classification: Unisex
  • Expense: $250 for 55ml EDP