Nostalgia

One of the biggest reasons that I buy a fragrance is, to no one's surprise, the memories that they evoke. Most of the fragrances that I own remind me of something, someone, an event, music, or other trigger that I could think of from the past. I think that's true with a lot of people too. Nowadays, people like this would probably sit in the minority. The reason I say this is because of the biggest "fad" that goes on social media. It's the "flavor of the week" or "what brands are asking me to promote them" type of deal. I think it's amusing when you hop online and listen to a random stranger that you don't know from Adam discussing perfume. I went off on bit of a tangent there but I think I'm going to leave it in this article because it might inspire me further in my writing.

I will give some examples of my past purchases and some reasoning why I bought them. I don't just blindly grab a fragrance without a purpose. Some would call this "blind buying" and while I have been guilty of this a few times, it's not common practice for me. I was burned on a few of those blind buys (wallet mainly) and it made me change my perspective on how I go about purchasing them going forward. One of my most recent fragrance purchases, Pardon from Nasomatto, is a great example. For those of you who are familiar with LIDGE from Guerlain, you probably know where this is headed if you know my fragrance taste. LIDGE is what got me into the Guerlain brand and they remain one of my go-to houses to this day. I had listened to several reviewers, read forum posts, checked blogs and saw a common theme about Pardon. People said it reminded them of LIDGE in a way. I was sold instantly. As soon as the bottle arrived, I threw on a spray and I was back in the moment when I first smelled LIDGE. This is why I do fragrance. It brought me such positive emotion that I was convinced this fragrance was one I would attempt to keep on my shelf permanently.

MFK's Aqua Universalis Forte is example #2. This is another fragrance that will be on my shelf but for a different reason. It gives me memories of being with my grandmother before she passed in 2006. Whenever I wear it, I'm reminded of her so I try to wear it on special occasions or a day when I just want to be reminded of her. I have some fragrances on my shelf that were given to me by ex-girlfriends that I still wear (sparingly) but I have never once thrown one in the trash, given it away, or sold it. It's mere existence on my shelf reminds me of them, sure, but the scent inside the physical bottle does not remind me of them whatsoever. I made no memories with them while wearing that scent. Plus, it would be disrespectful to the perfumer and the work that went into creating it, as well as showing how petty of an individual I was if I participated in this type of behavior. Every fragrance that I've been gifted is still on my shelf. I may not wear them as much as the others but that doesn't make them any less important than the rest. It's because they're gifts that I want to keep them on the shelf longer.

The biggest example I can give you guys of me being nostalgic of a fragrance is Polo Blue. The first fragrance I ever owned. You'd be hard pressed to find many people who own this fragrance or think it's still relevant today. I consider it my 10/10 and will always be on my shelf. Is it cheap? Yeah. Does it smell synthetic? Yeah. I don't believe that either of those things takes away from a fragrance's value. My dad got me this fragrance when I was younger and I own not only the normal version, I also own the parfum version as well. I feel like it's become part of me at some point but I don't quite remember at which point it occurred. 

Going back to my earlier tangent, it still amazes me to login to YouTube or Tiktok or any other medium you can think of and see people promoting certain brands. The most common theme I see people jumping on board with today are the brands that make "alternatives" to other fragrances. I despite the word dupe because to "duplicate" means you nail it from start to finish. Other brands are taking a fragrance DNA and altering it. I don't agree or disagree with the people who promote it. The reason is because I'm all about exposure and letting people get their noses on something new. Not everyone can afford a 200-400 dollar fragrance. Just not in the budget and it's unrealistic for people. On the other hand, the shameless plugging of these brands who push those alternatives is on another level. Let the product speak for itself. If it's good enough, you don't have to shove it down people's throats you know? I understand that you have to market your brand and advertising is part of the game. I still echo the previous point. Let your product do the talking. Some of these alternatives are how some people get introduced to the original muse. Case in point. When the Aventus hype train started and you see SEVERAL brands start putting out their interpretation of it, a lot of people couldn't afford a 400 dollar bottle of Aventus. Creed's price point is one of my biggest gripes with their scents. Green Irish Tweed is one of my favorite scents of all time but the price point makes me cringe whenever I pull out my wallet to get a new bottle of it. Going back to Aventus, you had several brands put out their spin on Aventus. Some of them were "close" to the original, depending on who you ask, while others were far from the mark. Depending on who you want to believe, I think it was about two things:

1 - Getting as close to the original as possible for sales (stating the obvious here)

2 - Providing people with a cheaper alternative to the real thing. I know this part will get overlooked for the mostly due to my last point.

Like I said in the blog post, exposure is key for me. I may not be a fan of the way they advertise but I'm all about getting people into the journey. If it means smelling something and you think it smells good, more power to ya. That's what matters at the end of the day. My starting point was a designer fragrance. I also had a very selfish reason why I got into the journey but times change and so do people fortunately. 

This brings me to the title of the article. Several of my good friends got into fragrance because of alternatives or cheaper brands that you would find at a Wal-Mart, Target, or other stores. Their family members would wear these so several of them bought them as well as a way to remind them of the important people in their lives. I did something similar when I was younger when I bought a brand most people probably don't remember - Curve. My dad actually wore this going to work and I can still remember him walking through my front door and I immediately got hit with that smell. I knew what it was and I knew how I could get a bottle for myself. See? Exposure is all it takes. Exposure and nostalgia in this case because I still have a bottle of Curve on my shelf. The exact same version of the fragrance my dad wore before he passed. Buying Curve eventually led me to buying Cool Water which eventually led me to buying my favorite Creed fragrance of all time, GIT. You will see the argument online about GIT vs Cool Water in many places. The argument itself is for people who just want to whine, complain, and give themselves a sense of superiority. Depending on my stage in my fragrance journey, you could have counted me as one of those idiots. The point of fragrance is to bring people together, not divide. I think that's the purpose of my fragrance journey.