Make Your Own Super-Mouillettes From Noyaux de Toilette

Just in case that evasive title doesn’t convey the full idiocy of this post, allow me to spell it out in plain old English:

Make Your Own Surprisingly Awesome Perfume Smelling Strips From Toilet Paper Cores

Yeah. You read that right. This is absolutely crazy, but it’s TRUE AF.

Now, I can’t actually take full credit for this “invention”, which must be given to a real character who I refer to by the name of Hillbilly Cologniac. Let’s just say that, next to Hillbilly Cologniac, anyone who would go by the nickname of Redneck Perfumisto is “sophisticated”. HBC, not to be confused with his grand nemesis HRC, is so “prepper” that he regards “preppers” as late to the game. Living his entire life around the premise that World War VI already happened, HBC is awash with odd residues of his version of “radical abundance”, and – yes – toilet paper cores would be one of them. It turns out that test papers for things like radioactive iodine and nerve gas are a thing as well, and – WELL – make your own test papers.

Clearly, this way of dealing with the lower end of the fall of civilization is easily adapted to the upper end.

Although – to be honest here – if you’re a normal person, you just plan ahead and buy enough of those damn perfume smelling things – what do the French call them? – ah, yes – mouillettes – which is basically pronounced “MUY-ETTES” – and you never have this problem. However, if you’re like ME, then you’re intermittently too lazy, too cheap, and/or too distracted to have enough mouillettes on hand and distributed properly in your abode.

Here are some very typical but somewhat medium-grade mouillettes.

You can buy these online at a variety of places. One place which has these and many more products you might need, is Accessories For Fragrances.

Store Link: http://www.affwebshop.com/perfume-tester-strips/

Now, if you’re a person with some measure of class, taste and means, and you run out of these things, and you don’t have time to have scent strips airlifted to your castle, then you MERELY grab some of your favorite watercolor paper from the studio and SNIP-SNIP-SNIP you have your emergency mouillettes.

Source: https://www.basenotes.net/threads/374251-DIY-Smelling-Strips

Note that Strathmore Watercolor Paper 140 lb is recommended.

I really have no excuse not to do this, either. My dear wife has watercolor paper. Either that or sketching paper. Almost the same thing. I think I may have even bought it for her. But yes – I’m too lazy for even that level of planning. I would have to FIND where she put the paper, which is undoubtedly in the most obscure place possible, deep in that cauldron of artistic mayhem known as her studio. No. That kind of a hunt is remarkably similar to “chores”.

So if you’re like me, then you are looking for scent strips, you have to “freshen up”, and a moment of borrowed vintage inspiration strikes.

But let’s back up.

One of my first experiments used coffee filters that my wife didn’t like and wanted to throw away. I needed scent strips, whereas she had been complaining about the coffee filters, and wished to get through them faster so she could try different ones. So I helped her out.

Indeed, this happened through several styles of coffee filters.

As you can see, these strips tend to be short, off-sided quasi-rectangular, and overly flimsy.

Coffee filter-derived perfume smelling strips actually work pretty well for differentiating fragrances, and they are also very annoying, for the exact same reason – they tend to evaporate quickly.

Thus, these home-made strips blow through a scent’s progression very fast, and if two fragrances are not the same, it shows up very quickly and very obviously.

Of course, if you’re not comparing two fragrances, but rather analyzing one fragrance in depth, then moving through the scent quickly may not be all that useful.

Personally, however, the real deal-breaker for me is the flimsiness. These thin strips don’t hang over an edge very well, and sniffing them is almost like waving a flag. Thus, I was “on the prowl” for something better.

When I first tried using toilet paper cores, I was immediately pleased that the resulting scent strips were thick enough to make the old problem of laying down the scent strip moot.

However, they also looked a lot like my old coffee filter scent strips. “Quadrilaterals” – if I was lucky. Most were flattened hexagons.

Nevertheless, I was QUITE pleased with the performance. Fragrances seem to last forever – and I’m NOT just talking base notes. I’m talking topnotes and heart. They literally last for days. Topnotes still disappear first, but WAY LATER. It’s basically the same thing you see with normal mouillettes, just s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d – o-u-t – i-n – t-i-m-e.

My second core gave even better results.

These were starting to look like actual professional mouillettes. I got 14 of them from a single core, which I found fairly impressive. On the third core, I got 13 with a bit of waste from failure to match a terminal “down tester” to the backside of the initial “up tester”.

On later cores, going for slightly thinner testers, I got 17 and 18 testers each.

It took me almost exactly 6 minutes to cut up a core into testers – I’m sure others could do much better.

SO – now let’s get down to why you’re likely here – explicit instructions.

I could show you pictures, but that would attract riff-raff, and we can’t have that, so to preserve some level of sophistication here, y’all will have to follow along with my written word.

• Core in hand, using scissors, make a single cut along the axis of the cylinder, JUST SHORT OF HALFWAY. You want to leave between 5% and 10% uncut in the middle.
• Make a second cut, parallel to this one, the width of a tester HANDLE away from it.
• Make a third cut, the width of a tester TIP, away from the second cut.
• Make a fourth cut, the width of a tester HANDLE, away from the third cut.
• Repeat this pattern until you run out of core.
• Flip the core, find a cut “handle” on the cut end
• Cut a tester TIP to almost meet that handle, but go JUST SHORT OF HALFWAY.
• Repeat that pattern, cutting tips and handles to match the other end.
• I find it easiest to cut tips to match handles – the handles on the second end just work out.
• When finished, you will have a “furry” toilet paper core. Be amazed! Corigami!
• Make diagonal snips to complete your testers, which will fall like rain.
• If your testers did not perfectly match, you may have some extra. Save or discard.

That’s it. You have your “emergency” testers.

And just in case you thought I must be completely crazy to do this….

It’s even worse. There are MORE LIKE ME.

Be afraid!

---

Don’t Throw Away Empty Toilet Rolls! Here Are 11 Amazing Ways To Use Them!

Stop what you’re doing! Put down that empty toilet roll and step away from the bin.

---

Advertisement