The democratic nature of perfumerie
I have to dork out for a minute about one of my favorite aspects of perfumerie, from an artistic/commercial standpoint:
The ability to access the same nose and creative sensibilities at radically different price points.
I noticed this because I tend to follow favorite perfumers rather than houses. I love it, because I believe deeply that all people should have access to the work of great artists.
So you can buy a $12 TJ Max John Varvatos Artisan, or a $180 Tom Ford Neroli Portofino, both by Rodrigo Flores-Roux.
You can buy a $30 Lalique Encre Noire, or a $380 Le Labo Cuir 28, both by Nathalie Lorson.
You can buy a $25 Bvlgari Black, or a $180 Le Labo Patchouli 24, both by Annick Mennardo.
It’s as if Picasso did his $24 million paintings, but then used cheaper canvases and oils to do $350 paintings you could buy at Target.
In fact, I think that’s the best analogue, and it’s both recent and hailed for its revolutionary nature—Target offering collections by celebrated designers at dramatically lesser cost.
Anyway, I find this very cool and interesting and I don’t have many people in my life who would care much.
TL;DR— perfumery is cool and unique because you can access the same creative sensibilities at very different price points.
Who are you favorite noses and some of your favorite works by them?
Nathalie Lorson - Lalique Encre Noire and all of the flankers.
Annick Menardo - Bvlgari Black
Olivier Polge - D&G The One EDP
Rodrigo Flores-Roux - JV Dark Rebel
Alessandro Gualtieri - Nasomatto Black Afgano
Alessandro Gualtieri is a favorite of mine as well. What about Ellena?
I respect Ellena’s creative philosophy a lot. I haven’t smelled many of his creations. Really only Terre D’Hermes, which wasn’t quite my taste but might grow on me someday.
Definitely investigate him. His work is very respectable. However, he is known to make something and hen muddle it by drowning it in Iso E Super, which some people don't like. It reminds me of the technique used by early Guerlains who would drown things in nitro musks to make them really "foggy".
Chandler Burr’s book certainly left me wanting to smell more of his work.
I like this style of post.
Anyways, it brings up the interesting issue of purpose among perfumers. In other words, these noses are in many ways hired guns. Are they only doing it for the money or for the challenge? Green Tea by Arden was created or consigned by MFK. But who can clain mastery with that project?
It gets a bit more complicated when you examine the team at Axe. I'd argue the excellence of these noses lies in their ability to snipe their target market. He did it for Le Labo and turned around and did it for the teen market.
I love that you can get a $30 fragrance made by the same perfumer who composed that $400 fragrance.There are some high quality bargain finds out there by famous perfumers. For me, perfumers are like a vein of excellence, a mother lode, that run through various houses at various price points and phases of their careers. And they are originals, not copies.
Francis Kurkdjian, in particular -- he composed a few groundbreakers, and many think he made better perfumes under brief from other brands than his own. Duchaufour has moved through many creation phases and was an early adopter of new materials. He's so prolific, I suspect he uses mods, but when he's brilliant, he's absolutely brilliant, which happens often enough. He had free rein at L'Artisan for awhile but shows up in so many brands. It's no secret I love Thierry Wasser's work and have full bottles launched in 1987, 2003, and 2012. I wish I liked the Ropion and Grojsman styles more, though -- they have so much out there that's very very distinctive.
There are so many perfumers to explore: Maurice Roucel, Antoine Lie, Francois Demachy, Edmond Roudnitska, Annick Menardo, Sophie Labbe.
Also ones who have worked mostly with one house, like Christopher Sheldrake with Lutens, Camille Goutal and Isabelle Doyen; and Jean Claude Astier with M. Micallef.
I've heard of him but am not familiar with his work. What has he done that you like?
Oh yeah! I've smelt Nasomatto Narcotic V, but nothing else.
What!?!?!?! Ok must smell..... fuck, shit, damn! Awesome house, you are going to love it.
Duro: Aggressively pungent woody masculine, right up something your alley.
Black Afgano is the hyped one, and my favorite, blissfully intoxicating. Cold, warm, herbal, wet, dry, bright, muddled, and sensual all at once.
Pardon is the polite one, not too aggressive. Synthetic medicinal oud accord meets creamy sandalwood and dark, velvety chocolate with intermittent whiffss of hay and sweet spice. Imagine a hot dude in a black tux, there ya go.
Hindu Grass: the most peaceful of patchouli. Light and wearable yet undeniably hippie.
Silver Musk: your-skin-but-better.
Nudiflorium: The fruity-floral-musk version of Black Afgano.
Baraondoaoioansco (however it is spelled, fuck it):STRAIGHT BOOZE DRANK NEAT. Apparently it is diluted with whiskey, not conventional perfumer's alcohol. Don't get pulled over while wearing this unless you want to take a breathalyzer. Dries down to a delicious creamy gourmand.
GO NOW, BUY SAMPLE, SMEEEEEEELLLLLL
Edit: spelling
Memory returning -- I smelled Duro, actually did a B2B review with LM Hard Leather. When I'm clear of all the samples I'm awash, maybe I will try the others.
Edited to add: without the curse words this would make a nice house profile/review or description post.
Duro: Aggressively pungent woody masculine.
Black Afgano is the hyped one, and my favorite, blissfully intoxicating. Cold, warm, herbal, wet, dry, bright, muddled, and sensual all at once.
Pardon is the polite one, not too aggressive. Synthetic medicinal oud accord meets creamy sandalwood and dark, velvety chocolate with intermittent whiffss of hay and sweet spice. Imagine a hot dude in a black tux, there ya go.
Hindu Grass: the most peaceful of patchouli. Light and wearable yet undeniably hippie.
Silver Musk: your-skin-but-better.
Nudiflorium: The fruity-floral-musk version of Black Afgano.
Baraondoaoioansco (however it is spelled, screw it):STRAIGHT BOOZE DRANK NEAT. Apparently it is diluted with whiskey, not conventional perfumer's alcohol. Don't get pulled over while wearing this unless you want to take a breathalyzer. Dries down to a delicious creamy gourmand.
GO NOW, BUY SAMPLE, SMEEEEEEELLLLLL
Better?
Baraonda? Submit a thread, looks great.
Excellent point! MFK has also done several mainstream designer scents that are highly regarded. His own brand is pretty expensive and not easily accessible in smaller cities. But you can always find Burberry, Narciso R and Le Males wherever you go; lines he has a major imprint on.
Salvador Dali actually did what you are talking about. He has works that sell for millions upon millions of dollars, but you can also buy original mixed media sketches for between $500 and a couple of grand.
This is frikkin' amazing. I want one. I wonder how they keep the prices down? A Picasso in ball point pen on toilet paper would sell for millions.
Because Dali made THOUSANDS of them at the end of his life. He was basically bankrupt and would “pay” for things with doodles and scribbles and whatnot.
Are you sure these aren't editioned prints (lithographs, woodcuts, intaglio)? Even small, original pencil sketches go for the tens of thousands, or smaller editioned prints (like an edition of only 20) can be even really valuable. Oftentimes these prints look like original drawings/paintings, but if you look in the corner and there's a number like 34/100, then that means it's some sort of print.
But yeah, producing prints is absolutely a way that artists make their work more accessible!
Some are numbered lithos; not all, I think.
I checked the link and it looks like everything there below 5 figures is either an etching or a lithograph. Cool stuff, though- definitely some works of his I've never seen.
Google? Looks like there are a bunch on 1stDibs.
Direct link: https://www.1stdibs.com/creators/salvador-dali/art/
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I think it is really cool to be able to smell the creations of perfumers at various price points---as long as those perfumes are unique.
I absolutely lose respect for a perfumer and a product when the perfumer makes essentially the same perfume for a different company, one usually being a lot more expensive, and there's very little difference in the notes. For example, Jerome Epinette is the perfumer behind The Orchid Man and Vibrant Leather, both Aventus smell-alikes, with a huge difference in price point. He also did Morning Chess, which is even more expensive than the Frapin fragrance and it could very well be a flanker of each other...and I think he did Musc Imperial cause he did the rest of the Atelier line, another one that gets compared to Aventus.
Bertrand Duchafour is also guilty of this but somehow I can respect him a bit more because at least the price points of his fragrances are usually all in a similar range.
Maybe my nose was off that day, but I thought Neela Vermeire Trayee and L'Artisan Parfumeur Traversée du Bosphore smelled similar to each other.
Genuine question. Do you believe that the price difference is the ingredients used? Or is it purely branding?
I think it has more to do with the nature of the creative process in actually developing the scent. Like, when you give someone like Dominique Ropion complete creative freedom like Frederic Malle did, you get something like Portrait of a Lady, which I believe does use a number of expensive materials (if the copy from the brand themselves is to be trusted.) But it's also an incredibly beautiful, unique work of olfactory art. It has a real depth and richness to it that isn't necessarily "mass appealing," and doesn't smell like any other designer scents on the market. So, you're paying more to have a more unique creation made under more unique circumstances.
Then, you have something like Girl of Now that he made for Elie Saab, and you get something that's nice, but kind of smells like another just Dior Poison Girl-esque gourmand that is trendy at the moment. I'm sure that Elie Saab didn't just let Ropion make whatever he wanted, cost and mass appeal be damned, in that instance. There were likely many testings, meetings, focus-groupings, and whatnot that drove the direction of the finished product on top of anything that Ropion himself did. That doesn't mean the final product bad, but it's a different process and one that produces a product that is more mass-produced, and thus, able to be bought more cheaply than something like Portrait of a Lady.
Not op but I would venture to guess that both branding and lesser quality materials are factors. The ingredients do play a big role though. High end perfumes often have ingredients that are natural and thus, more difficult to produce and store. Inexpensive fragrances often use synthesized fragrant notes, often as the heart of the scent. Cool water for example uses a popular synthetic ingredient called “Calone”. It’s distinct, and easy and cheap to make in bulk. Something like oud, or sandalwood, or even real oak moss and especially ambergris are incredibly expensive because of their rarity or difficulty to cultivate. I’m sure branding also plays a factor in inflating price, but there is definitely something to be said for the composition of fragrances when comparing inexpensive to niche or high end stuff. The point was that a great perfumer will make a good product within whatever framework they set forth to work in.
I think it’s a little of both. I think higher end fragrances SOMETIMES use more expensive ingredients or greater concentrations, but not always. I don’t think anyone would bat an eye if Encre Noire were a Tom Ford or Le Labo fragrance. You could still criticize it, but I doubt you’d think it smelled cheap.
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