Basenotes/Parfumo Comparison

Interesting point of view of BN...

I actually wish there was more vintage fragrance discussion on the Male Fragrance Discussion forum there. Right now in my experience it is "all Aventus, all the time" to my great chagrin. Folks have absolutely no idea what they are missing with the classics and that really is disheartening.

I enjoy the current releases and the vintages, but to me it is anything but vintage snobbery on BN nowadays, more in favor of misguided (IMO) Creed snobbery instead. The vintage versions of the classics very frequently smell completely different than their current counterparts due mainly to IFRA restrictions among other things, and I am a firm believer they need to be sought out by folks to get a good foundation for what they are smelling with the current versions of those classics. No snobbery here, just the sad reality of what is happening on the ground in the business.

That said, it is always good to hear differing view points and I will have to look harder for those instances of vintage snobbery you are seeing.

What is vintage trend snobbery BTW?

Different people have different tastes, that should be no problem, neither here nor at BN.

There are just so many factors that influence diffrence between recent and vintage... reformulations, yes, but also... a lot of vintages are not good anymore, though you want to believe they are. And that you compare to the new version. Unfair, don't u think? Plus... over time, a lot of ingredients become very difficult to get for mass production, not because of the price, but because they just can't be found anymore. Another factor is the constant climate change and fluctuations of polution from year to year- the scent of the ingredients vary a lot in time. So even if you could go back in time and smell the very first bottle of Mitsouko (so you could get a REAL ideea of how it was, I repeat, most vintage bottles are not good anymore), and you would recreate it today with the exact ingredients and in the same way, you will see that it will not smell the same as the first one.

Waste of money on stale juices, this is what vintage snobbery is. You want so much to think that the juice still holds "the spirit of those times", but truth is, it doesn't, even if they are kept in ideal conditions, they get bad in few years.

P.S. Yes, I do speak from experience, unfortunately. I had my ... quite big share of vintage acquisitions.

Basenotes is still not "over the hill". Huddler promises an increase of users to the communities who pair up with them, but in case of BN, it seems that the opposite happened, for various reasons.

Bringing together the high quality content of BN plus the rock solid technical platform of Parfumo - that would have made a lot of sense. I guess it is too late (for the moment)

Actually in my collecting experience I have rarely encountered this (and while I am showing my age a bit, I have been around long enough to know what many of them smelled like when they were originally released). Maybe I have just been lucky but I have a decent collection of vintage fragrances that have held up very well. Sometimes the top notes are not what they once were, but for the most part the composition is very much intact. Of course I have had a couple duds that indeed had gone off and those went into the rubbish bin tout suite, but those misses were few and far between. I wouldn't trade my vintages for their current releases and you can call that misguided snobbery if you want, but I rather think it is just choosing quality.

With respect to it being unfair to compare current compositions to their vintage counterparts... Why not? It is certainly true that some materials can't be acquired or can't be used due to regulations and that has altered the fragrance profile of the composition... That is the point, however. I am not blaming manufacturers for honoring IFRA regulations or not using materials that are no longer available, etc., but as long as they want to use the same name of a given classic, it is fair game to compare the original release with the current, IMO... I will even go further in saying one should.

Okay, I think I get the point. Nobody wants to waste money on stale juices.

This is also the reason why I hesitate to explicitly lookout for vintage perfumes. Occasionally I have bought some vintages but only shortly after they were discontinued. Nevertheless, I like to discuss vintages, although all I have is my personal memories.

It is always a loss if a remarkable perfume is being discontinued, and we very likely will not get it back. But what we can do is keep the memory.

At Parfumo, we are collecting the still available sources of historical and vintage fragrances, and we put them into the database. This is part of the reason why the Parfumo database is so much bigger than that of Fragrantica and obviously that of BN, too. Have a close look at Parfumo Research to find out!

The majority of the vintage lovers and miniature collectors may not have found us yet, but we are working on it!

The high quality content of BN was mainly from the past, IMO. Most of the posts nowadays are rather childish with many of the most knowledgeable users there having left the site (willingly or unwillingly).

That said, there is a great archive of excellent material there, and a good review database as well with some talented current and past reviewers (of course I feel that way about the reviewers here too). I agree that if you combined the technical superiority of Parfumo with the older, helpful discussion group members and content of BN that would be ideal and quite desirable.

The best moment for such plans would have been summer / fall 2011 when BN started to have problems with their old software and Parfmo took the decision to go international.

Well, the opportunity was not taken.

Anyway, I always felt that Parfumo (both the German and the International site) is pretty much what BN used to be 4 years ago, when I was a quite regular user.

THIS.......is a good and accurate post. The newbs on BN aren't so new anymore and have evolved to become the regular voices there. They have filled the void left by veteran members who were knowledgeable about vintage and niche releases.

It's simply a changing of the guard and nothing will change that......even if it isn't for the betterment of the community at the moment.

I still believe more "discriminating" members are here at Parfumo, just in lesser numbers. The community is growing slowly and that is to be expected when you have 2 other more established forums.

BN may have done better to open a dedicated vintage forum. This "style" works on ( for example ) hi-fi forums and is successful keeping Marantz, Sansui, Pioneer and other favored brands segregated for their enthusiasts. It seems to lessen opinionated in-fighting and vehement disagreements and most importantly, flat out inane posts.

Looks like it was just posted that Basenotes is going back to the old site format.

Yes, here is the announcement.

www.basenotes.net/t/381402/important-announcem ent-october-2013

But, unless the Code is re-written to match the everchanging requirements, what can be accomplished?

My impression was that Basenotes is simply too large and therefore busting at the seams.

Oh dear!

Hopefully they don't go back to the old instable software solution.

Back to the old V-Bulletin????

I don't get it. Why return to a format that gave everyone fits and couldn't accommodate the traffic?

If I understand the following announcements correctly, they return to the old layout and features, but with a different technical backbone. Well, anything else would be suicidal!

That.......would make sense.......but.......it remains to be seen if V-Bulletin will be successful with the tweaks needed. They tried before with all manner of "attempts" at accommodating the traffic, but to no avail. Perhaps Grant stumbled upon a format that was previously unavailable?

Either way, I hope it works for them.

Basenotes is high on the search results and most budding enthusiasts will lurk, then join, then join in. The female forum is a tight clique of very nice submissive women who defer to the men. The men are often bawdy and get away with it without moderation. When a newbie questioned this she was told it started as a male forum, continued strongly as a male forum and 'what was her problem?' It happens, I guess.

Basenotes is all READY - GET SET - GO to switch back to the old format over this weekend.

Many people are rooting for that. After all, the place is like Home for many who have made friendships over the years.

Let's see how it goes. (I, too, liked the old format better.)

I hope all goes well for them.

They were down and now are back to the old version.

I just tried it out and it feels good - like "home". I know where all the topics are and navigation is easy. I have my WARDROBE arrangements with PARFUMO and am only reading/posting in BN for the sake of keeping up-to-date what is happening in the internet perfume world. So, "Scent of the Day", "Wardrobe" or "Blog Articles" are not an issue.

The many members are greeting each other joyfully and relax with the old surroundings. A few are not relaxed because their stuff is still with Huddler and comes back later.

There is nothing wrong with the place except that maybe the membership is too large for the server/software or whatever technical reasons.

Unfortunately, all the down time and site functionality glitches are back too.

While I truly hope BN succeeds, I am happy and thankful to have Parfumo as a safe haven from all the BN functionality problems...

On the various Discussion Boards there is now a choice between

LIKE this post ...... OBJECT to this post ..... REPORT BUTTON

The REPORT BUTTON is for things like pornography etc.

The LIKE button is for liking what the member said. Or, if really necessary for the tone of the discussion, to OBJECT to what the member said.

Then the LIKES are shown, with the name of the member who liked it. Similar to Facebook. The LIKES will be counted.

I don't know whether this method will become "a loaded gun" - but the intent of Management was that the crowd could self-regulate the tone of the discussions. Taking some of the weight off the Moderators who are still there, too.

We shall see.

I like the feature of LIKE. When many LIKES are showing, perhaps an opinion or a novel idea can be considered - prominently in view - instead of getting lost inside the discussion flow.

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Update: I have watched yesterday. The LIKE button is there, but it is not really used. The members probably have not noticed it yet.

Now I am wondering whether such a LIKE button would be of value here in PARFUMO?

Personally, I don't like the "new-old" v-bulletin that is the current BN. I wish they would just make up their damn mind and accommodate everyone without all the glitches and changes.

I want them to succeed because they deserve to and the hobby is better with them than without them. Parfumo will incrementally succeed alongside the other 2 sites.

Don handles the growing pains here in a superior fashion. I'm inclined to think that Grant has never been technically gifted and his only mistakes have been never turning it over to the right people.

I have the feeling that PARFUMO will "succeed incrementally" because of the perfume reviews. The Perfume Page is excellent, all information is neatly visible there.

So, outside eyes will search for a perfume, find it via google under www.parfumo.com and land on a well organized Perfume Page. Then they will read a carefully put together and intelligent review.

As the Database is growing thanks to a massive but organized members/team effort, the chances are that more and more outside eyes find the latest or the most obscure perfumes here on PARFUMO, and then they see the rest, and join.

I wish that more outside Blogwriters would become members, we shall see.

has the feature that when I post a new topic, like for example, the news that INDULT ("Tihota") is back, I finish my post in the composing box and submit it as a new topic.

It is then displayed on the Forum board.

I scrolled down underneath that composing box and found the notations that previously 3 more same topics were discussed. These topics are listed with dates. So, it is easy to access those via those links. It also showed that my topic submission was brand new = current and not a replication of what was most currently discussed.

See this link:

www.basenotes.net/threads/370228-INDULT-is-bac k-quot-Tihota-quot?p=2982805#post2982805
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I think that such a feature is really NEAT and could PARFUMO consider installing something like that?

Indeed, a good idea!