Noles 14 Noles 2024

You're probably here to find out if the nearly 100 € for a fragrance that everyone seems to praise is worth it. Let's take a closer look at the situation.

The influencer Farina has often recommended perfumes in the past, from Byredo Blanche, Zarko the Muse, to her absolute favorite scent from the Body Shop, White Musk.
Generally, these fragrances are all about fresh laundry scents.

When she promoted her perfume, it was also marketed with the words fresh laundry feeling, inspired by her favorite scents. But not copied.

Since I absolutely love fresh laundry scents and have come across many of them in the last three years, having several fresh laundry scents as decants, I was naturally very curious about Farina's fragrance.

So, I went ahead and ordered the 50 ml for nearly 100 € blind. Without knowing what to expect. However, since all her favorite scents suit me, I thought it must go in that direction.

Let's get to the point, how does the fragrance smell?

Definitely not like fresh laundry! I can tell you that right away. To me, it smells like old laundry that has been sitting in a laundry basket for several days. It has an oriental touch; if you don't like that, you shouldn't even order the fragrance. And somehow, it also reminds me of my grandmother.

At first, the fragrance smells very strongly of a penetrating rose. Loud and annoying. Not a rose like we know it in its most beautiful form, for example, from Delina.
To me, it’s a plastic rose that is super annoying and gave me a headache right away.

Luckily, this note fades quickly, and all that remains is a masculine woody scent. Not sweet and bitter. It smells strongly of musk with old woods that have been lying on the beach for days. It reminds me of Zarko the Beach in the drydown. And somehow, it still has a hint of an oriental scent to it. This is something you don't know from Farina's recommendations, this touch.

The scent lasts for me 2 hours, and it is definitely gone after 2 hours. I tried using Vaseline to make the scent last longer and sprayed it on good body spots to see if it would hold up a bit longer. No chance. But that’s not a problem for me. I'm glad this scent didn’t last on me.

I also took the time to read many reviews on Instagram about this fragrance; of course - a perfume doesn't appeal to everyone, but it just confirms my experience that this scent does not smell like fresh laundry. The longevity is also strongly confirmed for me. Everyone writes that this scent lasts 2 hours. The brand released a statement saying that a scent one likes wouldn’t be smelled throughout the day because one becomes nose blind. People, do you think that’s a good statement? The fragrance has only been on the market for a few days, and after wearing it once, one is far from being nose blind. That’s just a way to sugarcoat everything. We can only hope that no one falls for it.

I'm curious to see what else this brand will release; the fragrance house producing it usually doesn't release scents at this high value; normally, they are Betty Barclay, S. Oliver fragrances, and others that are unknown to me.
You definitely pay for the name of this influencer.

Anyone who followed the launch on Instagram knows that Farina enjoys being in the public eye and being the center of attention. The event was very extravagant and definitely expensive.
In the end, you know exactly where the money goes for this expensive fragrance, which is actually not even worth half of it. Into marketing, some fancy influencer parties, and most influencers are paid to test and praise the fragrance on camera. And we naturally pay for all of that and finance one great party after another and many paid advertisements. I hope this all comes to an end someday; if there had been samples of this fragrance, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have sold nearly as well.

Let’s take a look at the team that developed the fragrance.
Farina, the influencer, buys perfume because she likes it. Mostly Byredo. But she has never really engaged with perfume in the last few years. You can tell that if you've been following fragrance recommendations for a while. She wears a scent because she likes it, but she doesn’t think any further about it like we crazy community do. According to her description, apparently all fragrances last forever and are suitable for every season.
Ann-Kathrin, the social media businesswoman, who actually records podcasts and prefers to stay away from the influencer world and all the events, is Farina's right hand. The woman behind the scenes. She is an expert in social media, marketing, and bringing influencers into the spotlight. In the past, you’ve only seen nail polish recommendations from her, but she has never really engaged with perfume as one would wish from someone launching a fragrance. She also says that she operates differently than the influencers.
Katrin, head of marketing. She was previously at Westing as marketing manager, and before that, she was at Annemarie Börlind, a cosmetics brand, as marketing manager. Nothing is easier for her than to build a brand through influencers, as she has shown in the past. She can plan large events and bring all influencers in front of the camera to praise a product that may not be that good. She was brought on board because she knows cosmetics well. But this brand has also never released a fragrance in the past. They actually make face cream and natural cosmetics.

In the end, three women have launched a fragrance who have never really engaged with the topic of perfume intensively.
But these women know how to build a brand, bring influencers on board, and host great events, making the end customer feel like they need this product because it would be great.

Conclusion:
Three social media experts have created a fantastic expensive marketing product here. Now it’s up to you, will you get on board or will you not support something like this?

Supplement 27.09. Today, Farina shared in her story why there are no samples of this fragrance. Since they are a startup company, they have to manage their money, and one can either throw a great event or offer samples. And then one has to weigh what is more important and set priorities. And the priority is indeed events instead of customer service and samples. That already says a lot about a company...
She also mentioned that a large flood of complaints came in over the weekend after the launch, and they didn’t expect that at all. How surprising!