There’s also been a psychological shift in society. Women today are nothing like they were in the 1960s, when Chanel advertised its most famous scent with the slogan “Every woman alive wants Chanel No. 5.” These days, we don’t want what she’s having; we expect everything to be customized, from the inseam of our jeans to the blend of our cold-pressed juice.
— Read more at Customization Is Coming to the Fragrance World (And you can actually afford it) at Marie Claire.
I find it interesting that everything old is new again: This was the deal back in the day. People had clothing fitted to them, and fewer (but well made) clothing as a result. Same with medicine- prescriptions were compounded for you; my mom went to a compounding pharmacist back in the 1980s. And scents were mixed, too- I do remember that Macys and Bloomingdales had things for rich ladies to order certain scents and they could get those compounded to order.
Yes!
I saw a ‘make your own perfume’ set at Costco just last week — 10 scents, 10ml each, with instructions on how to mix them to create ‘your’ scent. All this for $26
(no I didn’t buy one)
$30 online:
https://www.costco.com/Kirkland-Signature-Fragrances-100.34-oz.product.100457717.html
Cute! But why on earth didn’t they give it another name…you don’t want to buy Kirkland Signature Perfume Blending Collection while you pick up your Kirkland dog food.
Interesting. I agree that individuality has always been there. Hence the idea that perfumes smell different on different people; we ‘make our own scent’, as a SA once said to me.
I half-remember reading that it was Chanel who first started promoting this idea, perhaps to nuance the ubiquity of its own marketing. The line ‘every woman alive wants Chanel No. 5’ was surely directed at men looking for gifts for their wives, but the wife who was gifted No. 5 might not necessarily have wanted to smell the same as every other woman at school pick-up.