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| Snippets of my Collection . . . Niche-Like |
This year, I've been diving into Zoologist fragrances, and after experiencing Bee, I reached a conclusion: a significant portion of the high-end niche fragrance sector seems to be indulging in a nostalgic revival of the seventies, eighties, and early nineties, tailored for the affluent. Earlier today, while listening to Ramsey on YouTube, I heard him harshly criticize Luca Turin's review of Des Cendres by Les Abstraits, even going so far as to call Turin a "bowel movement" and question his credibility as a fragrance reviewer. While I share some of Ramsey's concerns regarding Turin, I wonder if he's missing the broader significance of Turin's role in the fragrance community. Yes, there is a point.
When Perfumes: The Guide was released in 2008, it coincided with the peak of Creed's popularity, just a couple of years before the launch of Aventus. Turin's disdain for Creed was apparent, despite his positive reviews of Green Irish Tweed and Neroli Sauvage. The review that made me question Turin's judgment was his one-star assessment of Silver Mountain Water, which he described as "An unpleasant, hissy-metallic 'fresh' fragrance with a strange note of wood glue amid the din." It wasn't the fact that Turin disliked SMW that surprised me; it was the inconsistency. SMW is a Pierre Bourdon creation, and Turin had previously praised Bourdon as a "genius" in his review of Kouros. Yet, aside from GIT, nearly every Bourdon Creed was panned by Turin.
What's even stranger is that most of Bourdon's fragrances for designer brands also received poor reviews. Turin’s wife, Tania Sanchez, said that Joop! Homme smelled like cheap floor cleaner, but "coulda been a contender," whatever that means. She also misidentified Bourdon's Individuel for Montblanc as a "citrus green" fragrance, and criticized it as well. Millesime Imperial and Erolfa, both Bourdon creations, were dismissed by Turin as a "mini-GIT" and "thoroughly nasty," respectively. Sanchez gave The Brun two stars, calling it an "interesting greasy-woodsmoke idea" that fell short. Despite Turin's regard for Bourdon, his rating of Bourdon's catalog averages just two stars. It's puzzling, to say the least, and had me wondering for a long time.
Then it hit me. Luca Turin's views on Creed are less about the fragrances themselves and more about what Creed represented in the 2000s. The brand became known for taking underrated designer fragrances and "upgrading" them into "luxe" versions—perfumes that the public was already familiar with, but marketed as superior. The scandal surrounding Olivier Creed's alleged theft of these formulas was the talk of the town, with insiders like Turin casting shade on the house for practices such as retooling Bourdon's Individuel into Original Santal. One can infer from Turin's negativity that he disapproved of this practice. On the surface, it seems like an illegitimate complaint, made worse by the fact that Bourdon was the true author of the Creeds that Turin disparaged.
But after pondering it for years, it's clear that Turin's issue with Creed had nothing to do with the fragrances themselves, but everything to do with their provenance. If you enjoy Original Santal, why not just buy Individuel? It costs a tenth of the price and smells 98% identical. Is that 2% difference in note balance and slightly higher material quality worth $250? (The Guide was released when 120ml bottles were priced around $275.) To be fair, Turin has a valid point here. Let's be honest: if I'm choosing between Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed, knowing both are by Pierre Bourdon, and also knowing neither smells particularly natural, am I automatically going to spring for GIT? Probably not.
Similarly, if I take Mario Valentino's Ocean Rain, a fragrance I bought years ago for under forty dollars, and wear it for a week—a scent formulated by Edmond Roudnitska, Bourdon's mentor—would I then feel compelled to spend Creed money on Bourdon's Erolfa? I can achieve 80% of Erolfa's effect with Ocean Rain at 80% less cost. Sure, Erolfa is a Bourdon creation, and since Creed owns the formula, it smells like an expensive, well-made aquatic. But Bourdon was Roudnitska's student, and the master created Ocean Rain using mostly synthetic materials that few perfumers knew how to use in the late eighties. Even now, at discontinued unicorn prices, Ocean Rain costs less than a brand-new bottle of Creed. So why bother with the expensive stuff?
The question of "why bother with expensive" looms large in this discussion, as much of high-end niche perfumery focuses on superlative materials crafted into artistic compositions, which are then spun off into luxury ranges like Les Abstraits. But consider what Des Cendres represents: a woody-green chypre hybrid loaded with rich smoky and earthy notes—the kind of fragrance you supposedly can't get for less nowadays. Well, if you look at snapshots of my personal collection, you'll see that I have relatively inexpensive but undeniably old and outdated designer fragrances. And guess what? Many of them smell like they could easily be expensive niche fragrances.
My bottle of Bamboo by Franck Olivier, for example, is rich and densely woody, with a camphorous freshness and a spartan structure befitting some hipster New York indie brand that would charge a small fortune for an ounce. If you're unfamiliar with perfume, that indie approach might seem appealing, but once you realize that fragrances like Jacomo's Silences, Ungaro III, and Krizia Uomo all possess an intensity and richness associated with luxury goods, you might start to wonder why those brands didn't charge more. The answer is simple—they charged what they needed to make a profit. They didn't even come close to ripping off their customers because they didn't need to. The perfumes spoke for themselves, and if Krizia wanted $90 for 100 milliliters, that was more than enough to cover manufacturing costs and secure a 50% profit margin. Perfume margins are huge; that's why so many niche brands exist.
Just as Luca Turin was perpetually annoyed by Olivier Creed's business model of transforming affordable designer fragrances into pristine white swans for aristocratic consumption, I find myself constantly irked by niche brands that release fragrances accompanied by marketing copy filled with exotic ingredients like "herbal top notes of Siberian artemisia, heart accords of Australian cedarwood and Turkish fig leaf, and a base of Estonian white birch and Pacific ambergris." Meanwhile, I can stop by my local rack store, grab a bottle of Salvatore Ferragamo Pour Homme for $25, and achieve the same effect as that $300 "global tour in a bottle." Why would I buy Fougere Bengale when I have Vermeil for Men? What justifies a purchase of Mure et Musc when I can wear Creation de Minuit by Lapidus? What niche fragrance surpasses Bourdon's Kouros in its sheer beauty? What niche fragrance outshines Lapidus Pour Homme in its audacity? What $250 fougere from a warrant-wielding British concern could possibly compete with the proletarian versatility of Brut?
Most of the woody "cigar box" (as Turin called them) masculine fragrances of the eighties and nineties were composed with a dozen notes, durable materials, by capable and sometimes legendary perfumers. They were sold at department stores for middle-class money for years, and nobody needed a L'Artisan or a Creed to show them up. In those days, L'Artisan and Creed didn't even try. If you can remember that perfumery practices over the last twenty years have shifted toward the one percenters and away from the 99%, you can look forward to a future era where people's interests drift back downmarket to fragrances that can be made economically without smelling "cheap." And even if they did smell cheap, they smelled good, which is actually different from smelling cheap.
In closing, I recently bought a bottle of Silver Mountain Water on eBay, and the seller, known for its excellent service and honesty, included a sample from their own perfume line. I sprayed it on my hand and recoiled in disgust—it smelled like deck chair varnish. It made me realize that anyone can create a "niche" brand nowadays. All you need to do is mix some Perfumer's Apprentice chemicals into a jar of perfumer's alcohol, swirl it a few times, and cap it. You don't even need a label—just call it an "indie" or "niche" brand, charge a hundred bucks for three ounces, and figure out the rest later. But that's not luxury. I want to enjoy myself, and my nose doesn't wander from price tag to price tag. True luxury is to buy something that exceeds expectations and brings joy every time it is worn. Whether it costs $40 or $400, the questions remain the same: Do I like this? Would I buy it again? If the answer to both is yes, then I've won.