But [fragrance entrepreneur Pierre-Louis Berrier] and [Australian perfume YouTuber Demi] Rawling are also wary of how that mainstream success has led to a proliferation of new brands and launches hoping to get a piece of the pie, diluting what made niche perfume special to begin with.
“It feels like fast fashion, but in fragrance,” said Rawling. “Eight years ago, niche was like this hidden gem. … It no longer feels like that because of the oversaturation of the industry.”
— Read more in ‘It’s like a cult’: How online perfume communities are shaping the fragrance industry at Glossy.
EVERYONE ON HERE SHOULD READ THIS NOW!
It’s a revealing article and I found it upsetting in many ways. (Especially about Fragrantica!)
Nice to see NST get mentioned here, but I’m not sure how I feel about being a long-standing participant in an “old-school blog.”
I confess also, I’m dismayed by the dynamics, politics, and economics of the TikTok generation of perfume enthusiasts….
Why? This IS an old-school blog, in every possible way. By choice, and when it peters out that’s ok with me 🙂
There seemed to be a not-too-hidden implication of being just plain “old.”
This blog is older than the hills! It looks nothing like a modern blog…it looks like what it is, a blog that had its last redesign in 2009 or something and is just toodling along minding its own business.
Calypso you said what I couldn’t figure out how to say. I totally agree.
“Oversaturation of the industry” is right. I’m as obsessed with scents as ever but I’m so tired of the ever-increasing flood of scents, thousands upon thousands shovelled onto the heap every year. They can’t all be good, and most of them are going to be average at best (Sturgeon’s Law, “Ninety per cent of SF is crud”, was overly optimistic and overly focused: 95% of everything is crud), and who could possibly sift through them all to find the great ones, if there even are any?
The article was interesting but very depressing. I’m gonna go spray on something objectively good and try to calm down.
Totally agree. Why I keep coming to the “old school blog” is the the 95% gets filtered out and what I read about here is the good stuff!
I thought we had hit max oversaturation in 2010 but I was way wrong 😉