Perfume coverage in the April issue of Allure, and as always, please comment on any fragrance coverage you've seen in other fashion & beauty magazines lately:
Cover: Taylor Swift.
Scent strips: Burberry The Beat.
Editorial coverage: The Beauty Reporter section includes a "Berry Notes" feature on the new Halle by Halle berry fragrance (p. 56) and a "Smell This" feature in which random passersby comment on the new Gucci Flora (p. 60).
That's it! Another slim month for perfume.
When I saw your headline I thought it was good news, and that there was a lot of reporting. How disappointing. Didn’t hey add Frederic Malle as a contributor a year or so ago? I guess it wasn’t to be on a regular basis.
He did a few columns, but haven’t seen one lately. The magazine (like many magazines) seems thinner lately, and has fewer scent strips and less perfume coverage in general.
Well, I can only guess that we are supposed to be more concerned about whether we have “the sexiest lips ever” or how to deal with frizziness/roots/flatness than anything else. And goodness knows the mags are breaking NEW GROUND in the lip arena (lip color?? OMG who would have guessed?!) Personally, my lips are thrilled to know they can be the sexiest ever! (snickering)
Considering the billions of $$ spent on fragrance the amount of print space dedicated to it seems disproportionately skimpy. Of course if there was more coverage of perfume, y’all realize the lions share would certainly be about mainstream offerings. Which would still be a bit disappointing. And I fear that mags would handle it more like advertising than informative.
What these mags need is a regular section called “Niche News and Views” something like that . First there would be a column about new releases. And then they could explore an individual house…next issue; another one. They should start with perfumers/houses that have some name recognition to suck readers in then could begin sprinkling in the lesser known/more obscure perfumers. They could have guest reviewers even.
Just wishful thinking
HA…my son noticed the “sexy lips” lead on the cover and thought that was pretty darned stupid, and wondered why I was reading it. My lame excuse: I just read for the perfume coverage.
Are you telling me that you read it “for the articles” ?? lol
These magazines’ editorial agendas are powerfully driven by advertising; if there are no formal agreements for X amount of coverage in exchange for X amount of ad space bought, there will be soon.
Do the niche houses do any magazine-type advertising (the truly niche players, not the subsidiaries of Estee Lauder or LVMH)? I have no idea what it costs to advertise in Allure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s beyond smaller houses’ reach.
Really, this is reminiscent of the heyday of “alternative” rock–some people got very intense on the subject of “true” independent labels versus those that had deals of one sort or another with with the major labels.
I’ve never seen a niche ad in Allure, but when they were doing heavier perfume coverage last year, they did frequently mention niche scents.
Allure’s general ad rates:
http://condenastmediakit.com/all/genrates.cfm
I have some magazines from the 80s and I’ve noticed the headlines and by-lines are all still the same “The Sexiest You Ever!” “Kissable Lips” “Get Your Dream Body without Dieting!” I subscribe to Bazaar and I get the “subscriber’s alternate” cover and it usually has nothing but the pic and the title. I love that. It’s so refreshing. Now if only they’d all offer that option.
And no offense against Taylor Swift, but I am ready for a return of models to fashion mag covers. I’m so tired of the same “celebrities” over and over. Anyone think the economy might change this?
Wish Allure would offer that option!
And I’m afraid I don’t know who Taylor Swift is, but Allure always does a celebrity on the cover.
Even Lucky magazine does only celebs, albeit they are usually lesser known “starlets”. All the magazines feature the celebs on the cover and then have some kind of article/interview with them inside. I’ve found that I skip over these articles entirely now. I rip out my favorite ads/articles/photospreads and then recycle it a day or two after getting it.
I don’t have enough favorite material to bother ripping anything out…I can learn much more about perfume online than I can from Allure, sadly. I would not be at all surprised if the same was true of the beauty coverage.
Despite the idiotic cover tag lines, Allure does still have some very intelligent writing (yes, I do read it for the articles!), but its choice of cover subject has been awfully uncompelling of late. The rest of its articles (and the prices of the products mentioned) are geared toward a slightly older crowd, but the cover celebs lately have been more teen fare. Or maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy, kvetching about the danged infernal racket that kids call music these days?
That said, I’ve heard rumors that Allure might not make it, and I for one would be sorry to see it go.
I have mixed feelings about Allure. I don’t care about any of the non-perfume coverage, so lately I can whip through it in about 10 minutes, then it’s in the recycle bin — by & large, it’s a waste of paper on my part. But every print mag that fails is worrisome…when they come for my New Yorker, I’m going to be VERY upset.
There was a rumor recently that the New Yorker was contemplating moving to a biweekly schedule — hope that’s not true, although it would be better than shutting down altogether.
*weeps*
I smelled Halle this weekend, for a celeb scent it was strangely good. I think I will go back to buy it. I believe it’s only at Jcpenny right now. Really liked it, sweet but figgy and slightly woody. Price very reasonable.
Thanks! I’m not positive, but I think Kohls might have it too. I’ll have to check…
I just remembered! Last month in W there was an article: Someone named Daphne Guiness is releasing a scent with Comme des Garcons. It’s limited edition and it actually sounds interesting. It’s supposed to smell of old churches but with additions of “musky notes of amber, cypress, tuberose, and orange.”
I didn’t read the whole thing because when they did a feature on Vera Wang’s Look, they spent several hundred words talking about how her mother used to wear amazing perfumes (I’m pretty confident Shalimar was among the named) and how Vera was all hoping for something timeless and lovely. Then we got that soapy water of a fragrance.
But, I mean, it’s CdG. I can’t imagine them releasing something trite.
Oh thanks for posting, I’ve been looking forward to that one but didn’t know what the notes were. Sounds like it could be interesting — more so than Look!
Came back to find this thread because today I saw the new Pucci fragrances (new, or rerelease–e.g. Vivara) given a full page beauty shot and blurb in “O”…the one with Michelle Obama on the cover. They say more about the bottles than the scent, however.
Not quite scent, but Ines de la Fressange is on the cover of Domino. So guess what I spritzed today?
(I have the leaf bottle on, btw.)
Thanks for the report! The bottles ARE more note-worthy than the fragrances, perhaps — I just gave them very quick sniffs on cards, so not sure.
I thought Domino was the mag that folded?
Robin,
They are folding. But I just picked this copy off the shelf at Walgreen’s today…while they will publish no more–I don’t know when the last edition will be, or if it stops effective immediately– it seems the stock already out doesn’t vanish.
Aha, thanks.
Well, I totally missed it…they’ve got a “identify your signature scent” quiz…maybe you’ll want to pick this up…they use great scents as their exemplars for the various categories (Nasamotto, Le Labo, blah blah).
Interesting…I’ll see if I can find a copy, thanks!