CRITICISM, HALF-BAKED RELEASES, AND REFORMULATION

The other day when I was sampling Lush/Gorilla Perfumes’ Old Delhi Station, I wanted to read the official list of notes and what others said about it so, as usual, I did an internet search. The first bona fide review that came up was this one. It was not just a review, it was a philosophical discourse on the art of reviewing perfumes and speaking one’s mind. It’s an old post, but it’s still an enjoyable and thought-provoking read.

Unfortunately, as a perfumer, I have to be very careful about speaking my mind about other people's perfumes unless they ask me to, not wanting any appearance of a conflict of interest. However, as a consumer, one can say anything about anything. It's always refreshing to hear honest words, and I hope that all of those reviewers who are consumers feel free to exercise the wonderful freedom they have to speak their minds, never feeling guilty about doing so.

In any case, no one should be offended by honest criticism in an art/craft where value is highly subjective. Fans of a perfume or a brand should realize that others may not share their enthusiasm for it, and criticism is no reflection on their taste. Perfumers should know that if they produce anything other than bland, mainstream compositions, some people will not like them.

Perfume means something different to each person who smells it, and a cheap floral fragrance oil mixed with clove may be just as evocative to one person as an artistically conceived, superbly executed high-end composition is to someone else. However, there's no harm in calling each what it is and objectively comparing value with price. Some people love mass-produced, spray-painted garden gnomes. Others would prefer to have an original Henry Moore sculpture on their lawn. The only time there’s a problem with this is when garden gnomes are sold at Henry Moore prices. And yes, it does happen in sculpture, art, perfume, and every other area of endeavor.

A second issue raised in the post was that of perfumers releasing perfumes that are not finished products, with an individual perfumers’ work showing evidence of a learning curve. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), perfumers (like other artists) never stop learning and developing. As new materials become available, we learn to incorporate them into our palettes. As old materials disappear, we learn how to substitute for them. The longer we work in perfumery, the more our skills increase and our tastes change. We constantly want to try new things and set new challenges for ourselves. I agree that there are too many half-baked releases, and I know I am guilty of some of them. I take this criticism to heart.

This post has inspired me to do something that’s been bugging me for a long time, and that is to reformulate Little Stars, the first perfume that I ever released, making it better without changing its essential character. Little Stars has been a nagging theme playing at the back of my mind for a long time because I haven’t been satisfied with it and know I could make a better version of it today. Over the next few weeks, the reformulation will be a project that I’ll report on from time to time here. 

[Little stars bottle and flower photos are mine; garden gnomes and Henry Moore sculpture photos are from Wikimedia]

WISH LISTS

A couple of days ago I read an interesting blog post by Undina, entitled, “A Wish List for the Perfume Industry”, a point-by point list of things she'd like to see happen. Although I'm certainly not part of the mass-market "industry", I read it and agree with most of what she wrote, but have my own take on some of her points. 

1. There’s a need for more samples. I agree that every perfume manufacturer should provide samples, but as I mentioned in a previous post, I suspect that most people don't realize how expensive and labor-intensive it is to produce samples by hand. I don't know about mass-producing them by machine, but it probably isn't that much cheaper than mass-producing bottles. Knowing what I know about sample production, I personally don't mind paying for them, and don't expect the cost to be deducted from any bottle purchases I may ultimately make. 

2. There’s a need for more smaller size bottles. I wholeheartedly agree with this, and think most indie perfumers do tend to provide smaller sizes than their mass-market colleagues.  Many also provide a range of sizes, as I do. As a consumer, I would never buy a bottle larger than 30 ml, and prefer to just buy samples or "official" mini sizes of a few ml, provided they're in bottles that don't leak or allow for evaporation, a common problem with mass-market minis.

3. Warnings about reformulation or discontinuation. So far I've not had to reformulate anything, but if I did, I would certainly let people know that the fragrance was going to be reformulated, or that it would simply be discontinued, which is probably a better strategy than reformulation that changes the very nature of the fragrance. Reformulation should be announced before supplies run out, so that customers can stock up on their favorite formula. I did discontinue one fragrance because I wasn’t particularly fond of it, but still keep some on hand for anyone who knows about it and wants to order it.

4. Including the production year on the label. I think this is a good idea, not so much because perfumes have an expiration date like milk, produce, or baked goods do, but because natural materials vary from year to year, just as wine vintages do. For example, it might be that the version of a given fragrance using the 2011 harvest of olibanum resin from Somalia will be better than the version using the 2012 harvest. For most customers, such subtleties probably wouldn’t matter, but for others they might. I think I’ll start doing this in 2013.

5. Reissuing discontinued perfumes as special editions. In theory, this might be a good idea, but the reality is that perfumes are often discontinued because a material is no longer available or is restricted, so it may not always be possible to re-issue them in their original form. It would make no sense to re-issue them in a reformulation. If the only reason for discontinuing the perfume is cost of materials, poor sales, or an arbitrary decision, then this would be a viable strategy if people are willing to pay for the original formula.

6. Too many new releases. The issue of multiple new releases is one that bothers me quite a bit. Too many new mass-market releases are just flankers or more of the same old stuff, for no reason other than to keep the brand in the public eye. We're all caught up in the same new-release-inflation game, just to keep our brand in the spotlight. For an indie perfumer like me, creating new (and better) perfumes is a good part of the fun, and the reason we got into the business in the first place, but I realize that too many new releases can get overwhelming for those who try to follow the perfume industry large and/or small. The issue of new releases is one that seems to have no good solution. I'd be interested to hear from readers how many new releases you like to see per year from any one brand. Do you think that when a new fragrance is released, an old one should be discontinued to keep the number of offerings somewhat constant? 

7. Packaging, or as Undina put it, “wasting a beautiful bottle on a mediocre perfume or undermining a beautiful perfume with an ugly bottle”. This is all very well, except for the fact that what is beautiful or ugly lies mostly in the eye of the beholder. This applies to both visual design and perfume. For my own packaging, I prefer simplicity, choosing to spend money on quality materials rather than fancy packaging, but I know that for some people the appearance of the bottle is very important.

8. Trendy perfume notes. Undina’s main complaint is that she doesn’t like oud, and I'm sure that many people agree with her. However, if those people wait, a new trendy material will come along. Maybe they'll like it better. It’s just the cycles of fashion, and the fact that when new materials become readily available, most perfumers will want to try them and jump on the bandwagon for a while. I actually sometimes wear oud straight (the real thing – guilty pleasure, I know), and enjoy it very much. At the same time that genuine, unadulterated oud oil has practically become extinct, many good synthetic reconstitutions have become available, and these are almost certainly what is used in virtually all perfumes that are in the non-astronomical price range. In my opinion, many of these synthetic ouds are very nice, and can be useful in formulating perfumes, so I don’t hesitate to use them, trendy or not. A large percentage of the perfumes in existence use bergamot, but as far as I know, no one complains about it being overused, so I’m not sure why oud gets such a bad rap. Whether or not you like oud is simply a matter of personal taste, just as whether or not you like citrus top notes, which are much more common than oud bases. 

What would you add to the wish list? Curious perfumers want to know.