Powdery scents smell the way a makeup compact or a freshly ironed shirt feels: soft, dry, slightly vintage, very put-together. The effect usually comes from iris, violet, musk and heliotrope, and it divides people cleanly, some read it as elegant old-world polish, others as "grandmother's vanity". Modern perfumery mostly uses powder as a finishing veil rather than the whole story: No. 5 is the grand reference, Flowerbomb dusts its sweetness with it, La Vie Est Belle uses iris to keep candied fruit from turning juvenile. Powdery scents sit close, last long and never shout, which makes them quietly formal. Sample No. 5 once just to calibrate; every other powdery scent is arguing with it.