Does a high price tag signal a 'superior' scent? (No, of course it bloomin doesn't!) Here's an experiment...

Joy, once the most costly perfume in the world, 

now mere pennies in comparison to it's niche contemporaries.

I recently spent the 'whopping sum' of £18.95 on a brand new bottle of one of the most enjoyable scents that I have worn this year - Moschino's 80s classic, Moschino Femme. This bargainous whiff struck me as far more elegant, creative and wearable than many of the significantly more valuable vials competing for space in my sample boxes.

The fact is this, magnificent scents exist at both ends of the price spectrum. Equally, boring and unpleasant ones do too. A luxe name and a huge price tag does not necessarily equate to olfactory beauty or 'quality' ingredients (whatever that means).

I rant about this a lot.

So I decided to create an experiment to see if the tastes of other dedicated scent lovers detected a superior nature in more costly scents. I ensured that my panel had broad tastes (i.e. wore and appreciated several different genres) to encourage a fair outcome. I asked them to blind test an unmarked numbered sample, give it a rating out of five, and estimate the retail price of a 50 ml bottle.

I purposely selected four scents for the experiment that I personally appreciate, with the cheapest creation coming from Yves Rocher and the most costly from Grossmith. These are two of my favourite lesser known brands. There was no point including famous beauties from my Guerlain or Chanel collection as my panel would possibly be familiar with their wares and therefore be biased. A fifth scent was my own invention, included as a kind of decoy or placebo, to see how an unbranded personal creation would fair against commercial products.

Here are the results:

Scent No.1 Moschino - Moschino Femme EDT 
RRP £32 for 45 ml (actual price £18.95 recently from Allbeauty.com)

Clive: "Something here makes me go weak at the knees. I get beautiful white florals (frangipane) in the opening and an almost immediate strong sense of the past. A classical structure where exemplary balance, blending, and note separation make for a deeply enjoyable wear. I think this might be Centrepiece by 4160 Tuesdays, but I’m not sure!" 

Estimated cost per 50 ml £110, 5/5

Alice: "Pleasant enough creamy floral opening. This creaminess really thickened up and I thought it was going to become cloying but then it just disappeared! Very familiar, almost ubiquitous. Smooth with some quality but felt like it was trying to be more expensive than it probably is?"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £40, 2/5

Holly: "Fresh, not very floral, woody, quite smooth and subtle. Rather bland nondescript – destined to appeal to the high street masses and offend no one ?"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £100, 3/5

Claire: "A polite and thoroughly pleasant citrus opening, with white florals. Nicely constructed though to about 2 hours then it changed drastically to sweet caramel vanilla with a little musk. I felt like they ran out of money to do the scent they wanted."
Estimated cost per 50 ml £30, 3/5

Scent No. 2 Lubin - Nuit de Longchamp EDP

RRP £85 for 50ml 

Clive: "Soft fruits, juicy, complex and faceted, quite busy opening, lots going on, cough syrupy, resins, Iris, florals. Different notes grabbing attention in the first 5 minutes. On skin the fragrance has integrity, the green and floral notes come forward, polite and balanced on skin. Very different to Card"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £45, 2/5

Alice: "A plush fruity blast that made me think of green and purple. Slight medicinal note stopped it being too sweet. Very enjoyable, if I thought it had good sillage (need to spray) and wasn’t too expensive would probably buy this for fun!"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £35, 3/5

Holly: "More floral than No1. Brighter, Rose. Smells like Agent Provocateur which I like."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £80, 4/5

Claire: "Very soft spicy oriental,with some Iris? This felt like it didn't want to offend, maybe I didn't put enough on, it didn't lift off my skin. Again I found this changed to basically just give of musk after 3 ish hours. Not a cheap musk but not a perfume."
Estimated cost per 50 ml £25, 2/5
 

Scent No 3 Grossmith - Shem el Nessim EDP

RRP £170 for 50 ml

Clive: "Vintage, old school, heliotrope floral, summer hay note, Habanita without the dirtier aspects, reminded me of French perfumery, vanilla, maybe labdanum, bold aldehydes. Like a Piguet or a Caron."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £120, 5/5

Alice: "I got nothing from this at all, inoffensive with no development. There was a smell there but what it was or how it made me feel? Nothing! Maybe its my skin’s fault but this didn’t even really appear on me or affect me on any level."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £20, 1/5

Holly: "Has a classy vibe - something by Chanel? Powdery, iris/orris root."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £150, 3/5

Claire: "Suspect this has Guerlain DNA but it's one I don't have! I'm getting jasmine Ylang Ylang, peach Vanilla, darlings… anyway I like it. Drydown smells more consistent with the rest of the fragrance. This got a compliment from the husband too."
Estimated cost per 50ml £60, 4/5

Scent No. 4  Mine, no name This was my 'placebo'. It's a floral chypre that I created solely using essential oils. I estimate it would cost me about £50 to £60 to make 50ml (there is a lot of rose and jasmine absolute in here) but a professional perfumer would obviously pay a lot less when buying ingredients in bulk quantities.

Clive: "Big bold camphor note, unctuous rich and tear inducing. Patchouli on steroids with a beautiful mint note, quite linear. Leans eastward."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £90, 4/5

Alice: "Lush and layered like an underwater iris, this wouldn't necessarily be my thing but I appreciated it a lot. Was scared it was going to end up disappearing into powder but that didn't happen and I happily kept sniffing my arm. My family thought it smelt really nice!"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £50, 3/5

Holly: "Very Dubai? Masculine? A heavy hitter with a urinous note and oud in there. Herbal, Resins. Best part was the dry down with Patchouli coming through."

Estimated cost per 50 ml £150, 2/5

Claire: "A style of perfumery I have trouble wearing. High in essential oils this is either a skilled artisan (cheers Claire!) selling for peanuts or someone like Bogue. The camphoraceous patchouli hits you hard and I didn't enjoy wearing it until an hour had passed, amazing lovely dry down. Quality ingredients!"
Estimated cost per 50 ml  "Hmmm, £15 or £100 per 50ml?", 3/5

Scent No. 5 Yves Rocher - Secrets D' Essences Voile D' Ambre EDP

RRP for 50ml £52 (which is nonsense as they always sell all of their scents with at least 40% off RRP, todays mail order price is £26.)

Clive: "Citrus lavender  tonka and almond with a hint of something that resembles pear drops, banana note. Gourmand, edible.   Beautiful tonka, Amber whilst retaining a sweet  benzoin note right to the end. The drydown is stunning!!"

Estimated cost per 50 ml £80, 4/5

Alice: "The most familiar smell! Which is probably why it was my favourite out of the whole bunch. There was something moorish about it and I even got some compliments! Quite linear but there was a depth to it I loved. Can’t wait to find out what this one is so I can explore it further…"

Estimated cost per 50ml £60, 4/5

Holly: "Weak, little impact,dilute. Hard to detect any notes in this wan insipid floaty floral."

Estimated cost per 50ml £50, 1/5

Claire: "This felt like a classic perfume. Herby citrus top, with some flowery and animalic benzoin showing through so you know the journey, felt creamy and rich. this got the most compliments too. Sadly this one leaked so I only got to wear it once!"
Estimated cost per 50ml £60, 5/5

Our winner

 

Score summary

Yves Rocher - Secrets D' Essences Voile D'Ambre 14/20 Winner

Moschino - Moschino Femme 13/20

Grossmith - Shem el Nessim 13/20

My unnamed scent 12/20

Lubin - Nuit de Longchamp 11/20

So, with only 3 points separating the winner from the loser, I can summarise that my panel, in this instance, agree with me. Superb! It also highlights the extremities of taste, ultimately suggesting that there is no such thing as a universally appealing scent. I will also reveal that the winner cost me nothing, it was a free gift when I spent £15 on some foundation.

If you want to find out more about Yves Rocher, you may enjoy this post featuring another scent from the Secret D' Essences line - Neroli. 

Enormous thanks to my panel for both their time and their honest opinions. It was greatly entertaining to read your responses. 

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Scent Shopping In Knutsford At Pulse Of Perfumery & The Discovery Of Lubin

This week I had the joy of spending some time with fume retailer Peter Murray at Pulse Of Perfumery, an independent scent shop in Knutsford. For my International readers I must explain that Britain is sadly lacking in independent scent shops, having just a small handful outside of London and (I think) only three very much spread out over the North of England.

Knutsford is a great example of ‘ye olde England’, a teeny historic town in the heart of Cheshire, dripping with wealth, yummie mummies and day trippers. An ideal spot to launch a shop that sells luxury items. This seams to be a commonality as the other two are in Lytham St Annes and York, both towns of a similar nature.

Pulse Of Perfumery has been a great success, launched during Britain’s financial recession, it could have easily been boarded up six months into it’s life. A quirky shop in a small town is a dangerous investment these days. There are several reasons why I think it thrived.

Firstly, range. The lines are a mix of the classic (such as Chanel, Acqua di Parma, Hermes), the contemporary designers (Tom Ford, Jimmy Choo, Narciso Rodrigues and the like) and Niche (Bois 1920, Serge Lutens, Lubin, Grossmith and Atkinsons). Breadth has allowed for a wide spectrum of tastes and aspirations to be catered for.

I arrived purposefully early to get some time with Peter before the lunchtime rush. With just a few early morning customers, I had the opportunity to eavesdrop on some sales. The first was what could only be described as a ‘hit and run’. As we were chatting over some smelling strips, a lady hurried in, muttering the words Chanel No. 5. Nothing else, no hello and certainly no stolen glances at the marvellous wares on display. Peter wrapped, bagged and swiped at record speed and the woman was gone. The entire purchase took about 60 seconds. I’ve never seen a bigger contrast in shopping style to my own, I can only imagine she was parked on double yellow lines.

It’s a shame she hurried because she missed out on reason number two that the shop thrives – Peter. The man is a true scent lover who believes in the value of lingering with testers and handing out samples. Shopper number two had called in previously to buy a fragrance (I think it was for her daughter or niece). Instead of hammering a sale, he’d sent her away with samples to be tested, allowing the purchase to be of choice rather than a quick buck for his till. This lady returned to buy the chosen one, a contemporary designer brand, and then came to join me in my ‘Lubin swoon area’ where the three of us had a thoroughly lovely time sniffing from the decadently opulent bottles. I could tell in that instance that she’d be back to buy something spectacular for herself.

Personality and passion is crucial in scent retail, I’m sure we’ve all endured the bored type Sales Assistant bereft of any real passion.  Peter reminded me of the wonderful ladies at Manchester’s House of Fraser, who instead of employing teenagers, chose to staff their perfumery with Assistants old enough to have experienced a few decades of great perfumery. My favourite Assistant is an uber glamourous blonde with scarlet lips who personally wears Estee Lauder’s classic leather chypre – Azuree. I can tell her in a meagre few words what atmosphere or concept I’m hoping to write about and she’ll find exactly the right scent for me to sample. She knows and she cares.

Peter also ‘knows’. Whilst playing with the bottles he gave me a whiff of a very popular niche perfume that I won’t name, then followed it with a vastly superior scent that shared some similarities allowing me to compare. I was wowed at the complexity of the second, the recent release by Van Cleef and Arpels – Collection Extraordinaire Precious Oud. Now you know I don’t really ‘do’ oud but this one used it’s precious wood with subtlety, allowing it to dress a composition of incense and white floral notes. Somehow I was smelling an olfactory utopia that was rich with oud and tuberose that didn’t made me gag, in fact it made me sigh wistfully.

Swoon..

Double swoon..

The grandest discovery of my morning lay in the introduction to the scents of the historic French brand, Lubin. I’m going to cover a couple of these in a future article so I won’t babble on about them here, but with limited shelf space in the tiny shop, I can see exactly why he selected this brand for his niche chosen few.

Peter's prized vintage possession, brought down from the mysterious 'upstairs'.

Amongst the online community, we tend to be bargain hunters who rarely pay ‘shop price’ for our scents. Rather cheekily, we tend to browse the shops to gain our sniff and then wait for a discount online or a slightly used Ebay bargain. We are different from the average shopper in that our collections are often incongruent to our personal wealth. Average folk with millionaire scent cupboards. However, I think there is still worth in spending some time (and moolah) in an independent real world shop. If only for the fact that the small stock selection has been ‘curated’ by somebody who actually cares about what he’s selling. And if it costs you full price at least you’ll walk away with a pretty bag stuffed full of samples!

Readers, where in the world are your favourite scent shops? Do you have a fabulous dusty rummager full of discontinued gems, or a palace of contemporary creation? Do share your stories in the comments section or over at:

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Contact details for POP: 25 Princess Street • Knutsford • Cheshire • WA16 6BW • 01565 755650