There have several interesting threads recently about collecting fragrances and philosophies behind collections. I'm only about two years into my own journey and have been buying new bottles regularly. (I think I have 42 or 43 bottles now.) And I've been thinking about trying to design an ideal (for me) fragrance wardrobe of 28 bottles: seven for each season. So just a quick poll: what's the ideal collection size for you? And if you'd like to explain in the comments, even better. Thanks, gentlemen.

When people talk about perfume, they often use words like designer, niche, independent, and artisan as though they all mean the same thing. They don't. The perfume industry is actually made up of several different levels and business models. Some perfume houses have their own dedicated perfumer. Others hire professional perfumers from large fragrance companies to create individual fragrances. Some independent perfumers create everything themselves, while artisans may work on a much smaller scale and physically make and blend their own perfumes. To really understand perfume, you have to look beyond the name on the bottle. 1. Clone and Inspired Perfumes At the most accessible end of the market are clone and inspired-by fragrances. These companies study popular perfumes and create fragrances intended to smell similar to an existing perfume, usually at a much lower price. Some are very close to the fragrance they're trying to reproduce, while others simply take inspiration from a popular scent profile. This part of the industry is important because it makes certain fragrance styles accessible to people who cannot or do not want to spend hundreds of dollars on an original designer or niche perfume. But a clone company and an original perfume house are fundamentally different businesses. A clone brand's main objective is usually to reproduce an established olfactory idea. An original perfumer is trying to create something new. Clone Company Perfumers: There is no perfumer associated with them because they buy Pre-Made oils and add perfumer's alcohol to get to the concentration. They can buy these oils in diffrent quality depending on how much they are willing to spend. Basically, it comes already made minus perfumer's alcohol, from 2 companies in the Middle East. One in Dubai, UAE, and One in Kuwait. There are some smaller oil houses also doing some in-house pre-made Blends as well. These companies are like Givadaun, and they have an in-house perfumer and chemist and a Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry machine, Essentialy they are all getting the premade bundle from the same companies; no perfumer needed! That is all the ME Clone houses!!! And that is all American and European Clone houses as well. The better ones sometimes buy better-quality pre-blends and are essentially mixers, not perfumers; some may add certain raw materials or tweak a pre-made perfume oil concentrate.

And that brings me directly into Part 3, because this is where I want to go much deeper into who is actually behind these fragrances. Not just the brand name on the bottle, but the perfumers, the major fragrance manufacturers, the oil houses, the raw-material suppliers, and where these companies are actually sourcing what eventually ends up in the bottle. This is where the perfume industry starts getting a lot more interesting, because the brand selling you the fragrance is not always the company actually creating everything behind it. The Name on the Bottle Is Only Part of the Story One of the biggest misconceptions in fragrance is that every perfume house has a perfumer sitting somewhere in the back room creating every fragrance from scratch. That simply isn't how a large part of this industry operates. There are several different business models. Some houses employ in-house perfumers. Some hire independent perfumers. Some commission fragrances from major fragrance manufacturers. Some work with outside laboratories. Some purchase fragrance concentrates or bases and modify them. Some independent perfumers actually formulate, compound, test, and produce much of their own work. And there are companies using combinations of all of these methods. This is why I think we need to stop looking at perfume as simply brand versus brand. Behind those brands is another entire industry. The Major Fragrance Manufacturers At the top of the fragrance supply chain are companies most fragrance consumers will never see advertised on a bottle. · Givaudan · dsm-firmenich · IFF · Symrise · MANE · Robertet · Takasago These are some of the giants of the fragrance and flavor industry. They employ perfumers, chemists, evaluators, researchers, and technical specialists. They develop aroma chemicals, natural extracts, proprietary ingredients, fragrance bases, and complete fragrance concentrates. These companies can work on everything from a $20 body product to a prestige designer fragrance selling for hundreds of dollars.

Niche, Luxury Niche, Niche/Artisan, and Independent — How They Actually Work In Part 1, I talked about clone houses and designer houses and how the fragrance industry often works behind the name on the bottle. For Part 2, I want to move into niche, luxury niche, niche/artisan, and independent perfumery, because these categories get mixed all the time even though the business models can be very different. A lot of people hear the word niche and automatically picture a small independent perfumer sitting in a laboratory creating everything personally. Sometimes that is exactly what is happening. But a lot of niche perfumery does not work that way at all. Niche Houses At the most basic level, a niche fragrance house is a company primarily centered around fragrance rather than a fashion company that also happens to sell perfume. But being niche does not automatically mean the company has its own perfumer. Many established niche brands use outside perfumers just like designer companies do. The house may create the idea, concept, style, target customer, presentation, and overall direction, then bring in a perfumer to actually build the formula. Those perfumers may work independently or for major fragrance companies such as: Givaudan dsm-firmenich IFF Symrise MANE Robertet Takasago A niche house can use one perfumer for one release and a completely different perfumer or fragrance manufacturer for the next. That is why you can go through the catalog of a major niche brand and see several well-known perfumers represented. Think about houses such as Amouage, Ex Nihilo, Parfums de Marly, Initio, Memo Paris, BDK, Kilian, Xerjoff, Nishane, Electimuss, and many others. They are absolutely niche houses, but that does not mean one person inside the company is composing every fragrance. Luxury Niche / Box Store Then you have what I would call luxury niche. These houses are still fragrance-focused, but the operation can look very similar to a luxury designer company.

I am probably going to piss off some clone warriors with this one, but so be it. I can say this because I have been there. I chased everything. I owned hundreds of dupes and clones. I chased every new “95% identical” release, every beast-mode version and every $30 alternative that supposedly made the original obsolete. But I also chased every inexpensive designer brand I could find. Rack-store bargains, discounted designers, cheapies that somebody on YouTube said were hidden gems — if it was inexpensive and getting attention, I wanted to try it. Then I started doing the same thing with niche. I chased niche brands, affordable niche, hyped niche and whatever house everybody happened to be talking about that month. For a long time, the hobby became about the next bottle. And eventually I had to ask myself a question: Do I actually love perfumery, or do I just love collecting bottles? Because those are not necessarily the same thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with buying affordable fragrances. There is nothing wrong with clones either. Some are excellent, some perform better than the original, and some are incredible values. But if your entire collection is built around copies of fragrances you have never even smelled, I have a hard time calling that a deep appreciation of perfumery. Especially when those same people turn around and say: “Why would anybody pay $300 for the original?” “The clone is better.” “It smells exactly the same.” “The original is a ripoff.” How do you know? You never smelled it. Watching a YouTube reviewer tell you something is 95% accurate does not mean you have experienced the original. And this is one of my biggest problems with clone culture. Somewhere along the way, price and performance became the only measurements of quality. If a fragrance costs $25 and lasts 12 hours, it is automatically considered better than a $250 fragrance that lasts seven. That makes absolutely no sense to me anymore. Perfumery is more than projection and longevity.