What's your LEAST favorite thing about the perfume community

I think a lot of people (especially my fellow Americans sadly) take a “my team” mentality and if you don’t like their team then you’re not just a rival but an enemy. Their actions just follow from there. 

Im guilty as well. Ive had to check my maturity (emotional IQ) levels at least several times in the last few years. 

I feel like this behavior is much less prevalent on this site though. I think there are countless folks on here that even if I disagree with them I still enjoy what they have to say. 

Interesting that I usually like rivalry and so on but this approach does not apply to me for perfumes. Maybe because I do know it's a subject of personal taste so it's obvious that everyone like it different 🙂  🥂

any recommendatios for those who are not perfume lovers? any itar recommendations?

I love this question! When you say that you are not a "perfume lover" do you mean that you do not have extensive experience or knowledge about perfume or that you don't like most perfumes and want scent suggestions that are more natural or un-perfume-like?

Sometimes… actually a lot of times - more than we want to admit - gatekeeping is a good thing.

Curious as to what you mean, would love to hear your more in-depth thoughts on this.

The obvious example is the “influencer community” hyping and making perfumes more expensive and out of stock - thinking about a certain indie house but im sure many examples exist.

Also, I don’t think it’s a big sin if someone doesn’t want to share the name of the perfume when asked - we are not owed that information. Not me though, I love saying it when people ask me.

Ah, I see. I understand and agree on the price gouging side of the issue for sure. But it makes me sad to think that someone would lose out on what could be their dream fragrance or signature scent because I was too afraid of a price jump to share it with them. As for gatekeeping for the sake of uniqueness, it's one of my personal pet peeves. But I try to understand that everyone's personalities are different and not everyone feels the same. For me, I love to share the things that I enjoy with others so gatekeeping just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not saying it's a character flaw, but I definitely do get a negative impression when someone refuses to name a product (or where they purchased it) to others. It rubs me the wrong way, and makes me feel like that person thinks more highly of themselves than of others. It feels very self-important to me which I don't love. However, I know that's a personality difference, so I try not to assume too much.

If I have to squeeze one negative thing out, then it’s probably the complaining about IFRA all the time. They exist with a good cause, but a lot of people seem to think they’re out to get us and make our lives miserable or something.

But generally I really love the community! Lots of very generous and lovely people, fun to talk with 👍

Lmao, I guess my new least favourite thing is my anodyne post about sexism being removed for supposed rule violation of community rules.

someone's telling on themselves.

I apologize for any contention I might have caused here. I have opinions, but not all of them need to be expressed publicly. 

The people that believe everything has been reformulated and every fragrance gets better with “maceration”.

One of the things I have come to dislike in general is how some folks view dupes or consider them bad for the fragrance community. Dupes—especially the cheaper alternatives—are typically there for the consumers that cannot afford the original price point of the designer fragrance or get the original for whatever reason.

I have also come to find that there's some folks who will snub specific fragrances because of which celebrity made them, which I find quite baffling.

I agree with you on dupes.

I would go further and say that many people that buy dupes eventually buy the authentic version. I know I did multiple times. I initially bought dupes of Aventus, Ombre Leather, Tuscan Leather, BR540, Silver Mountain Water and more… I now own authentic bottles of all of them. 

Using terms like "smelly water" to describe fragrance by folks who supposedly love to write about perfumes. It has as much dignity and sense as 6-7. 😄 

Add to that people who feel the need to be aggressive and take offence to any opinion different from their own. 

General elitism and attempts to put down and police other people's experiences and language. But I suppose that's just a common societal thing rather than specifically perfume related one. People are people everywhere. 

This seems like as good a time as any to express my views on dupes. And first, I am a big believer in Wear what you want! Who cares what anybody thinks? Except... and this is just a very personal philosophy/approach/viewpoint, but it's pretty fundamental to the way I approach perfume: I don't want to smell like everybody else. I guess that makes me a reverse-elitist, but I smell popular scents sometimes in the wild, and I see the people wearing them, and they often seem to be "of a type", you know, the influencer with the expensive bag and the pouty lips wearing BR540. The dudebro wearing Creed Aventus. The gold necklace encrusted clubber wearing PR 1 Million. The girly-pops wearing the tooth-achingly sweet gourmands. And I'm just like, it's important to me to be a bit more inscrutable than that. I don't want to be read instantly (the way I, admittedly, am reading other people.) I don't want people to see, like, me displaying a status identifier or popularity guidepost. If they smell me, and appreciate it, I'd rather leave them wondering. 

If a fragrance is popular enough to be duped, I'm already kind of not interested. If I badly wanted a high-end fragrance that was beyond my means, I might just look for more mid-tier comparables, or just choose something else. Leave the Louis Vuittons to the rich folks! I'm totally fine with that. I think even worse than smelling like everyone else would be trying so hard to do so that you had to accept, and even embrace!, an imitation. Like a fake LV bag, other people not familiar with telltale signs might think you were carrying an LV bag, but you would know you weren't. It would make me feel like a poser, an impostor. So when I see these lengthy, raucous discussions about the best dupes of high end fragrances, I'm kind of like, do you know how much amazing stuff is out there in the obscure, mid-tier range? Vintages? Discontinued? Even under the radar lines from mass market designer, cosmetics, and jewelry houses? To me that's so much more interesting than seeing who can more closely ape something that already exists and everybody wants.

So again, absolutely wear what you want and make no apologies. But I do think that some of the elitism and dismissiveness surrounding dupes comes from a viewpoint similar to mine, they just express it in a cruder, less nuanced way. That's just my take on it! 

@JCWiley that’s why i layer 473728 different fragrances so i can smell like something no one has ever smelled. 😅 will the layering combo work? maybe. will it be original? well yes. 

99% of "influencers" piss me off. They see an opportunity to make a buck off a community and parasitize the heck out of it. They're a cancer to just about every interest/hobby out there, but perfumery being such a large and profitable industry seems to attract the worst kind. 

One of my other hobbies is knives, and influencers absolutely infested it over the past decade. Fragrance has "compliment getters/panty dropers" mouth breathers who sold their souls to middle eastern clone houses parroting the same script over and over. Knives have tourists that have never even used the knife they're reviewing talking about "fidget factor" shilling chinese companies that literally made their start cloning popular models. Difference is now they do it "legally" by collaborating with sought after makers making cheap versions or straight up clones of their popular models. 30 minute yap fest 1/3 of which is them shilling their patreon/social media then talk about action and "fidget factor", my brother in Christ, it's a knife, how does it cut that's all I care about. And you wanna know why they don't talk about the one thing a knife is intended for? Because 99% of them don't actually put the knives they review through any testing or even use them. The second I hear "fidget factor" I feel an urge to reach through the screen and commit unspeakable acts. Same as "compliment getter".

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against "dupes", I own a few myself and like them for what they are, some even better than the original, but to advertise them as X% close to the original is delusional and honestly should be considered false advertising. 

I do love the hobby, but I do have a few gripes I can name off lol. 

1. The “gym fragrance” trend

2. Influencers getting paid off by clone fragrance companies to constantly push the latest clone

3. Designer companies charging niche prices for their 5th flanker in the same line that tweaks one note of the fragrance. 

Wow, this is so incredibly well said.  I agree 100%.  

Bots running free making real people to quit the community.

You are so right about that, it is really awful!

This ^ an easy tell tale sign is all the obvious ones have the same collection in their “I own” and “I had” at the same time and then post in the SOTD fragrances that are not in their collection. 

But yeah how can you both “have” and “had” at the same time 😂. And of course all that have this strange behaviour are new accounts with heart counts but don’t have any comments hearted also.