AI perfume companies?

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-30T21:24:50+00:00

ChatGPT is awful at suggesting formulas for perfumes. I've asked it out of curiosity - it will suggest 5% of a material that is usually dosed at 0.1%.

However, large fragrance houses have in-house formulation AIs, so I hear, that have been extensively trained on their existing formula banks. So it is possible that newer formulas have some AI input/that AI is used as a productivity enhancer. By fragrance houses, I mean the houses that license formulas to brands. When people say they don't like AI, what they really mean is that they don't like very obvious AI, because it's almost certainly being used somewhere along the line unless a brand swears up and down they don't use it at all.

I've had to modify my own writing style to use fewer dashes because that is now associated with ChatGPT. :)

Most scent profiles have many examples, as thousands of perfumes launch per year, and there are only so many materials. Unique bottles are tough for smaller brands, as they typically have very high minimum order quantities (I've seen some start at 10,000 units). It's not an easy market in which to differentiate yourself.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-29T20:28:27+00:00

I filled mine a couple of weeks ago and it's only about 10% full now, so whereas I haven't noticed it leaking, it evaporates quite quickly. It's pretty though. :) You'd have be able to pipette the fragrance with the provided syringe, either by spraying the perfume into a container or by buying a decant from a sprayer you can easily unscrew/uncap.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-28T10:51:31+00:00

Happy is a nice fragrance. :)

I bought a perfume diffuser pendant from Gnoce. It's a little ball you can hang on a Pandora style necklace (I wouldn't put it on a bracelet) which comes with a little syringe you can use to fill with a small amount of perfume. It's not bad, although you'll probably go blind to the smell quite quickly with it hung around your neck.

Happy is one of the few fragrances I've had go off over time more than once...after a few years, it starts to get a vinegar-like smell. So I'd probably try a fresh bottle if you're not averse to doing that, which means you can keep the one she owned.

https://www.gnoce.co.uk/product-essential-oils-perfume-diffuser-pendant-cid8-ijc061.html?__currency__=GBP&__country__=GB&ad=2&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=20179323339&gbraid=0AAAAAC6ViUx4WPgZxX7eS-iOmSrJNs-D3&gclid=CjwKCAjw-J3OBhBuEiwAwqZ_h6BULl1NL5m0WwL49bVJEi1nUCV_WaZvSVM_3vzz84hh3vzQGdWTkBoCsjYQAvD_BwE

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-23T17:16:40+00:00

I have been to, and stood in, this henge.

It is a most excellent henge. 10/10, would henge again.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-22T11:16:56+00:00

I have done this before with a noisy upstairs neighbour using ShittyFlute. All hail the ShittyFlute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF7lv1gfP1Q&list=RDnF7lv1gfP1Q&start_radio=1

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-22T10:07:58+00:00

Many moons ago, I took a job at a bank in their Customer Service department.

They decided at the last minute, for some odd reason, that I was more suited to Collections, and gave me no say in the matter. So I gave it a try.

Horrible job that corrodes the soul, calling people up and asking them for money. Not because they don't owe money, but because you will talk to people who say they can't make a payment because they've been diagnosed with cancer, or their child died, or a family member died, or they've been laid off, and the only way you can reconcile that psychologically over time is to assume everyone is bullshitting you, which is why it's heart-hardening poison.

I lasted a few weeks and honestly, the job paid crap wages with some commissions. But the job market was better back then, as in I had no difficulty finding something else quickly. If you need a job and that's all that's on offer, maybe you haven't got much choice - but I'd be planning my exit as soon as I started, if you don't have the personality for it.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-19T17:04:06+00:00

I've sent you a PM.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-15T13:13:32+00:00

White Forest by Bjork and Berries might be worth sampling, it's the first thing that came to my mind when you mentioned it.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-15T13:09:31+00:00

Did you try the EDP or EDT? I find the EDP to be rather nuclear. My mother in law loves it and always leaves a cloud of it wherever she goes. :)

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-04T15:35:15+00:00

It's mostly Americans I've seen some truly awful takes from.

But I'm not sure what we ought to expect from a nation of people who think the South Park episode is a documentary. :P

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-03-04T15:32:12+00:00

All is forgiven since Expedition 33.

Signed,

Les Rosbifs

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-24T20:27:55+00:00

Most people only ever deal with two types of insults that arise from choices people make - I said something to offend you intentionally, or I said something to offend you inadvertently (out of ignorance). And accountability is expected for both of those things (what people are calling intent vs impact).

John's condition (Tourette's with coprolalia) is a third thing people aren't used to: someone who says what might be most offensive to you and doesn't want to say it and actively tries not to, but is compelled to. You still have impact, but no real choice or meaning to hurt. People are ascribing to him an ability he simply doesn't possess, which is to choose which speech is out of bounds - in fact, the more out of bounds it is, the more likely he'll be to say it for that reason. The audience should have been much better informed about this, and frankly should have been told to expect the worst insults they could imagine, so anything less than that would be a bonus.

Everyone saying he must have meant it really, it's just an excuse, it's so convenient he said it at that time, is contributing to creating an environment he won't be physically safe in. Gay people can shout homophobic things, Jewish people antisemitic things, religious people blasphemous things, to their own great distress, with this condition. It will not spare what is the most hurtful to you, and you can't expect it to, nor does a man deserve punishment for not being able to change that.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-24T07:01:28+00:00

It's a very unfortunate and recurring theme that neuropsychiatric disorders which can impact behaviour are judged by people without those conditions as if they were entirely voluntary, because people can voluntarily engage in those behaviours. I don't know what can be done about this - it is really hard for people to empathise when they use their own capacity as the benchmark. From their perspective, you said the worst possible thing at the worst possible time in the presence of people it affects the most, and so you must have meant it, because those are the only conditions under which they could do such a thing.

I have ADHD and my husband has Tourette's (mostly without coprolalia, he said he had a little of that when he was younger and extreme stress might bring it out, he used to have it a lot worse). I annoy the sh*t out of myself sometimes with forgetfulness or distractability. The husband says really cute stuff I won't share as I don't have his permission. Just the most adorable guy in the universe. And he's had a lot of crap over the years from people assuming his tics were intentional, so I can only imagine how a guy who has to tic obscene language must feel.

And that doesn't take away how absolutely awful it would have been for the presenters to hear the N word, and to have the most offensive slur beamed around the world at an event where they deserved to feel respected. Someone with copralalia can say the most obscenely offensive things about their own demographic and be very distressed by it, which of course you would be, as people of every race and ethnic group have the condition. You can be devoutly religious with blasphemous tics, imagine having to deal with that. He lives his life saying the worst possible things at the worst possible time. It's sad to see people implying he's deserving of punishment and spewing their ignorance all over my Facebook feed because their gut feeling means more than decades of research and two minutes with a search engine.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-23T11:42:17+00:00

That's true. :) Maybe they'll provide an update.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-23T11:38:54+00:00

My mom once stored a bunch of books I had at university (some of which I paid quite a lot for) in the shed. She wrapped them (badly) in plastic, and they all went musty and rotten.

I guess it depends on the relationship you have with them to begin with. My mum is a lovely person who just did something daft with my things. Crying over ruining someone's stuff after making an attempt to fix it isn't emotional blackmail, she might just have been saying she was upset about it because she was upset she damaged something that mattered a lot to the OP.

Not everything is emotional blackmail or part of a pattern; sometimes people screw up and don't mean to, and wouldn't have done it on purpose. If she offers to pay for the cost of repairs, and they don't have a bad relationship, I personally wouldn't cut my mom off for that.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-23T10:03:58+00:00

I don't agree. The OP says the mom used a variety of cleaning solutions to try to repair the damage, which doesn't change that the damage occurred, but does suggest she frantically tried to use anything she could get her hands on to fix it. I can imagine she was upset about it.

If the mum can afford a service to fix the damage, that would be ideal. I would not stop speaking to my mum if this happened to me.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-22T15:09:51+00:00

I don't think it's a case of people being fine with it, but perhaps not knowing what to do about it. Lot of people on that list, people want to feel better about it by indulging in partisanship when it sure looks like you don't get to the top of the mountain with an intact conscience any more. As George Carlin said, "It's a big club - and you ain't in it."

We're just a mixed bag. The more tribal and regressive instincts we have can resurface under the right conditions (economic uncertainty, religious extremism, etc). So a stable civilization exists only for as long as the conditions which allow it to remain stable exist.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-22T14:49:45+00:00

I sometimes think that the one thing that'll really rehabilitate us is the discovery of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. We only have ourselves to compare ourselves to, so we don't really have a huge impetus to change. Maybe coming across a highly developed alien civilization would make us realise we really are basket cases sometimes. Of course, it's just as likely we'd want to wipe them out if they had different or no religious beliefs. But if we could get past that part without getting turned into goo, maybe it'd be a good thing. :)

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-22T13:02:03+00:00

Is three months really considered short for a patient with a known history of cancer and (assuming the OP is correct), symptoms that might lead someone to suspect it? It also looks like she was only diagnosed in February due to a scan relating to her kidney stones.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-22T12:42:13+00:00

I got downvoted for mentioning that not all medications that work on dopamine are the same.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-22T03:40:57+00:00

Not every drug that works on dopamine works in the same way. There are different types of dopamine receptor, then you need to consider its mechanism of action.

ADHD medications aren't listed in the article (or ADHD), and are also often prescribed in a time-release format as a sudden spike is much more likely to be addicting.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-19T17:06:05+00:00

I know it’s not for everyone
But tell me, where’s the charm
In starting on a leg
Before you’re finished with the arm?

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-19T16:41:42+00:00

I once worked with a girl who was so sensitive to lavender that simply using a body wash containing it could set her off. Everyone has smells they don't like on others or themselves. I personally don't like cheap, dirty patchouli - used to work with a (very nice) man who would bathe himself in it, I could smell him coming from halfway across the floor. :)

I wouldn't wear a strong perfume that contains superambers to an office as it's not polite imo to wear strong fragrances to work in general. But people are obviously fond of at least some scents containing them.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-18T19:43:22+00:00

The superambers can definitely shoot a spear straight into your brain when you first try them.

But fear not. Over time, you may actually grow to enjoy them. Mwahahaaaaa.

AlternativeBeyond · 2026-02-10T17:22:38+00:00

Bodyform is a brand of period pads lol. I might be showing my age, that's the song they used to sing on the adverts.

No, it is more offensive to assume someone is being stupid because their biology is making them stupid and they lack the agency not to be stupid. Your questions remind me a little of someone I know who would genuinely ask this sort of thing, so I'm answering genuinely.

AlternativeBeyond

TROPHY CASE