Has designer fragrance been made obsolete?

Varanis Ridari said:

narrow-minded people couldn't get past the marketing or bottle

Click to expand...

Varanis Ridari said:

Honestly? More people (especially here) should like Toy Boy by Moschino. Everyone loves their musky rose masculines from the 1980's, and Moschino handed us all a modernized take on that, which was ignored because narrow-minded people couldn't get past the marketing or bottle.

Click to expand...

WarmJewel said:

I don't think you need to have a philosophical discussion on this to figure out the likely answer.

They've become risk adverse because they are mostly (there are exceptions) owned and operated by large conglomerates whose only interest is profit and shareholder value. You don't maximise your profits by taking risks.

Click to expand...

UESNYC said:

@sniffer64 Which Habibi do you like?

Click to expand...

monacelli1 said:

This thread made me think of a related question: What are the best designer fragrances that no one is buying?

Click to expand...

The Colognnoisseur said:

There are too many substantive fragrances that don’t come with the baggage of poor bottles, marketing, or names, to put up with these attempts to attract attention. Other examples are Bad Boy, F___ing Fabulous, Full Choke, Le Male, Phantom, Secretions Magnifique, and Fierce, to name a few. At least one can salvage Fierce and peel the tacky torso sticker from the bottle. At the very least, a fragrance company could make something worth picking up and trying, before one considers buying. Is it possible that the ignoring of some fragrances is simply nothing more than the free market revealing preferrences?

Click to expand...

sniffer64 said:

My current favorites are Urban Oud (so good, even though i am not the biggest oud lover) and Grapefruit and Sage (which is both better and more complex than the name would suggest). They offer quite affordable sampler sets, and include a coupon for 25 or 30% off of the next full bottle purchase. 100ml for some come in under the $100 mark with the coupon. And such nice people.

Click to expand...

The Colognnoisseur said:

There are too many substantive fragrances that don’t come with the baggage of poor bottles, marketing, or names, to put up with these attempts to attract attention. Other examples are Bad Boy, F___ing Fabulous, Full Choke, Le Male, Phantom, Secretions Magnifique, and Fierce, to name a few. At least one can salvage Fierce and peel the tacky torso sticker from the bottle. At the very least, a fragrance company could make something worth picking up and trying, before one considers buying. Is it possible that the ignoring of some fragrances is simply nothing more than the free market revealing preferrences?

Click to expand...

The Colognnoisseur said:

There are too many substantive fragrances that don’t come with the baggage of poor bottles, marketing, or names, to put up with these attempts to attract attention. Other examples are Bad Boy, F___ing Fabulous, Full Choke, Le Male, Phantom, Secretions Magnifique, and Fierce, to name a few. At least one can salvage Fierce and peel the tacky torso sticker from the bottle. At the very least, a fragrance company could make something worth picking up and trying, before one considers buying. Is it possible that the ignoring of some fragrances is simply nothing more than the free market revealing preferrences?

Click to expand...

slpfrsly said:

In all fairness, thhe teddy bear is nodding to something incredibly dark and disgusting, with just enough plausible deniability to deny it.

Click to expand...

Colbourne said:

Granted, this kind of subversive and overtly sexual marketing isn't my favorite, but I do think it has pushed the envelope in ways that the fragrance industry perhaps needed at the time (late 90s-early 00s), i.e. "it had its place," and I do recall just as much imagery objectifying the female in an eyebrow-raising manner that had not been highlighted by the OP. All of these almost seem almost quaint in comparison with what some "niche" and "indie" brands have done since then in the marketplace to transgress. Here's exhibit A:

View attachment 491410

Click to expand...

Stonecrop said:

Quite a lot of important designer and niche fragrances have been GC-MS analyzed / interpreted and made available for purchase. Also other open source formulas by the industry give a good indication what materials are used in General. Except for common essential oils the lions share is synthetics. Many current fragrances are even > 50% of (different qualities of)hedione, iso e super and some ubiquitous synthetic musk combos. Then Linalool / Linalyl acetate or even the purely artificial substitutes for those like Coranol or sclareolate.

Quality of ingredients differ, EOs from different sources can differ greatly, but as said those are only a small part of perfumes.

Click to expand...

Varanis Ridari said:

You're both missing and proving my point at the same time about the actual fragrance by doubling down on the marketing/packaging being offensive enough to your worldview that you'd refuse to smell (or possibly enjoy) the stuff inside the bottle for it.

I don't like the smell of Bad Boy or F*cking Fabulous, and the packaging admittedly doesn't help, but if those bottles were filled with something I like, I'd deal with it if good enough.

I'm not sure on that one, but I also know there are plenty of tacky or cringe bottles I've called out myself; but if I hated a bottle that much and still enjoyed the fragrance, I'd decant if necessary. So far never needed to do that, unless the bottle is too awkward to carry.

With Moschino, we're talking about a house that has Windex bottles, zany double-necked bottles and simulacrum of household objects in their fragrance catalog, not even speaking of their oft-wacky fashion designs, so it's probably (hopefully) not that deep.

Yeah, TSVGA absolutely pushes bad taste and the owner is a narcissist anyway, so fragrances like this don't surprise me. Still, if it was good and could be had without selling a kidney, I'd bite, which is my point.

People pearl clutch entirely too much over marketing.

Click to expand...

The Colognnoisseur said:

VR, perhaps we do have differing world views. Regardless, I respect your fragrance knowledge. I always learn something new and agree with your contributions, insight, and reviews 99% of the time. My dislike for the aforementioned fragrances in my previous post in this thread, for whatever reason, just means that there is more for the rest of y’all open-minded, non-pearl-clutching people.

Click to expand...

Varanis Ridari said:

You don't know how many times I've heard people say their sex lives or career lives are over at 30; that if they haven't achieved a PHD and 6 figures, or have 2.5 kids in a cul-de-sac, that they're abject failures. Game over at the first signs of laugh lines.

Click to expand...