The word ‘scent’ is very useful, it gets around the whole ‘perfume’ vs ‘parfum’ vs ‘extrait de parfum’ vs ‘eau de parfum’ vs ‘eau parfumee’ vs ‘cologne’ vs ‘eau de toilette’ vs ‘eau de cologne’ business. (These terms have to do with, more or less, a scent’s concentration.)
I’ve used scent since forever. As a teenager I was given a bottle of Chanel No.5 without having any real idea what a big deal it was.
When that ran out I couldn’t afford to replace it, and so moved on to Zen, by Shiseido. I don’t think it’s made anymore, and if it is, I seem to remember reading that it wasn’t the same formula.
Scent is so evocative, I wonder if I did smell the new one, would it do the usual takes-you-right-back thing, suddenly immersing you in a world long past? When I recently acquired a sample vial of No.5, I wore it and… nothing. No associations. Strange.
What scents have you worn in the past, and where would the smell of it take you?
It’s amazing how many different companies make scent. Adidas, for instance. I just don’t think I could. Too perfume-snobby. No matter how nice it smelled. “Oh, what perfume is that?” “Er, um, *mutter* Adidas.”
Harley Davidson, the Swiss Army knife people and Ferrari all make their own scents. Obviously to cash in on the name.
There is BIG money to be made with scents. The cost of the little slosh of scent in the bottle is about 5% of what you pay. The rest is packaging and marketing.
Packaging: a (somewhat) more economical way to buy yourself high-end scent is to look for ‘testers’. These are not half-empty bottles that have been on the counter at Nordies. They’re bottles in a plain box, without the fahncy packaging.
As much effort goes into bottle design as into the composition of the scent itself. Do you have most-loved and most-hated scent bottles? When her first child was born, a friend was given a bottle of ‘L’Air du Temps’, the famous double-dove one. She still has the long-empty bottle.
Marketing: I couldn’t track down how much Charlize Theron is paid to sponsor Dior’s ‘J’Adore’, but I bet it’s a bundle, and she started with them in 2004. The gold-collar tv ad was filmed at Versailles over four days, which I doubt came free.
Big-name fashion houses are said to make as much as 80% of their income from fragrances.
There are several websites dedicated solely to selling fragrances. Their reviews can be highly entertaining, if a little credibility-stretching. “i was on a plane and the females went nuts and i ended up in the mile high club”. And “There are only 2 things to say about this one: 1. AMAZING scent 2. Only lasts 3-5 mins Literally In conclusion.. if you want a fragrance that lasts as long as Jim did in American Pie with Nadia, then this is great for you.”
Professional perfumers can be equally entertaining when describing a perfume they dislike. “Perfumes: the Guide”, a book by expert noses (people with highly sensitive senses of smell) Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez, gives the authors’ opinion of some well-known scents. What did they think of Paris Hilton’s ‘Heiress’? They think it’s “a hilariously vile 50/50 mix of cheap shampoo and canned peaches”. Maybe a high-end scent will do better… nope… of ‘212’, from Carolina Herrera: “like getting lemon juice in a paper cut”.
Fashion magazines make a LOT of money from scent advertisements, and reportedly will never, ever write a bad review of a scent.
Currently, the most expensive perfume in the world is ‘Imperial Majesty’, made by Clive Christian. $215,000. But the price is really very bogus, since the 16.9 ounce bottle is Baccarat crystal with an 18-carat gold collar set with a five-carat diamond.
Jean Patou’s ‘Joy’, introduced in 1930, will cost you $800 an ounce, but you’re getting a higher concentration than most perfumes: there are 10,600 jasmine flowers and 336 roses in every ounce.
What do you look for in a scent? What’s your upper limit (per ounce, say) for price? Would you wear a celebrity scent? If you Secret TV/Movie/Whatever heartthrob put out a perfume, would you buy it?
Pictured: Ambre de Delhi, made by Babani, ca. 1920. Wiki Commons.
