Your opinion about Xerjoff

Hi everyone!

I would like to ask you all what your take on Xerjoff is.

I am personally not sure as of yet. A lot of niche enthusiasts, especially, seem to dislike it and put it in the same mass-appealing, unoriginal category as PDM and Creed. I have also heard Xerjoff described as an entry-level niche house.

I honestly thought the same, since the two Xerjoff scents I come across the most are Naxos and Erba Pura , of which I am not a fan at all. They are a bit too boring for my taste.

Yet now I am pretty unsure. I've smelled some fragrances from the Oud Star collection recently. And boy oh boy, those are not only good, but very artisanal and even daring, too! About Symphonium , I am not sure yet, but it is surely pretty original and well-crafted.

So I wanted to ask you: what do you think about the house of Xerjoff? Especially, if you are an artisanal-fan, what's your take?

I think that their scents are well crafted too. I really enjoyed sampling Birdie which no one ever talks about. It gets a lot of hate but for me it smells like hiking near the ocean. A lot of people like Apollonia and call it lunar like because of it's coldness but I just thought it smelled like cold bar soap... which is fine just not something I want. I thought the same thing about Star Musk . Irisss was a lovely iris scent but I'm a sucker for iris so of course I enjoyed sampling it.

I sort of have the feeling, the unknown Xerjoffs are 100 better then the popular ones, haha.

What did you think about Irisss?? Thinking of buying it

Almost as good as Iris silver mist you have to like green carroty iris. I would sample before buying a full bottle.

@nightflights thx a lot!

I only sampled a few Xerjoff scents, and out of those I only liked the mango one Cruz del Sur II (which wasn't the best mango perfume ever but it was very pleasant and actually smelled like mango). The others were either boring or unpleasant. If I had to guess, Xerjoff, like most brands, likely has some very good scents; they just happen to be the less popular ones.

But personally, as I wrote in the "perfume hot takes" thread a while ago, I find Xerjoff overall style and bottles to be extremely tacky. It's giving "one of my Slavic uncles establishing a brand aesthetic in the 90s" (even the name!) 😅 I am still curious about a few of their perfumes but the aesthetic puts me off so much that I will not ever want to buy a bottle, even if I would find a Xerjoff scent that I love. Maybe I am shallow; but if I had to spend so much money on a scent, I'd want to enjoy both the scent and the bottle (or at least, to have neutral feelings about it).

I think Xerjoff is a nice house and the bottles are absolutely gorgeous, there are some very good quality fragrances, however they are severely overpriced. Majority of their fragrances smell good but are not unique or particularly niche smelling so the only reason for paying the full price would be the luxurious bottles and packagings.

Xerjoff have A LOT. A lot of mainstream stuff, like the Erba Pura and Accento, but also a lot of pretty niche stuff which is their best stuff.

Check out the K Collection and the K Blue Collection like 'Ilm and Ether. It’s not what Xerjoff is known for, not a lot of influencers talking about those because yeah they’re niche.

As with any house, they've got some winners (for me) and many that are unremarkable. Bottles and presentation are top notch.

Xerjoff is basically a fake luxury scam brand that tries to sell average quality designers at a very high price dumping contastly things on the discounters to sustain the thing. You can like the formulas or not, it depends on your tastes and they release a crapload of lines and fragrances that probably once on a while you can find something of your taste (I have a full bottle of Deified Tony Iommi for example), but when you consider the brand it is really just marketing and poor quality for the price. It is the only brand that does these things? Off course not, there are plenty out there, it is just probably the bigger one.

I quote myself just to tell again how the brand was born and how it is run till today.

" Sergio Momo (boss of the brand) was not even a perfumer or into it, he was some sort of marketing guy, a glorified frying pans seller. The whole Xerjoff businnes started when he succeded to smuggle (litterally hiding in the bags hoping to pass the border) some kitsch jewels in Russia to scam the new post comunist aristocracy rising in the days. This "jewels" happened to be bottles filled with some whatever perfume. He made a good amound of cash from this smuggling thing and decided to expand the business replicating the "cringe fake luxury bottles with something inside" for the whole market. At least nowdays he buys the liquids from Givaudan and they are decent mid tier commercial fragrances, but the old scam fake luxury thing remains as the main thing in the brand."

I have sampled so many ones, Elle Anniversary , La Capitale , Allende , Italica , Lira Eau de Parfum , Erba Pura

Apart from Lira I really did not enjoy any, I'm really not a fan of Xerjoff dna. Also thought they were uninteresting scent wise... cute bottles for sure but not enough to make me want to try other ones.

Ive never been interested into this house and I keep it this way to be honest, but I also have this with MFK, Mood Oud Satin I do like the most, but its far from a Love to me and so I will never buy it, to me all those frags are way too much hyped. 

The packagings and bottles are absolutely stunning, but thats not the main reason to buy a frag.

ever since they (allegedly, to my knowledge) started dabbling in AI for their marketing campaigns, i’ve been VERY wary of them. to add to the parentheses point, if it’s been confirmed, i’m ceasing supporting them completely.

But apart this AI story, what do you think?

Xerjoff is a great brand with great quality.

I have about 20 of their bottles, my favorites are RichwoodNaxosUdenAqua RegiaTorino21NioZefiro

You really are a Xerjoff fan it would seem,haha.

But whar it is you like about the house?

I have three from Xerjoff that are regularly part of my rotation:

Alexandria II Parfum

Deified Tony Iommi

Tony Iommi Monkey Special

Im warming up to Luxor a little but it won’t be a full bottle purchase.

Thoose seem to be pretty nice.

Xerjoff perfumes are of excellent quality, veri long lasting and smell nice.

Of course, there are many Xerjoff perfumes that I don't like.

I wouldn't say I'm a fan of them 😁

Wow you have bought 20 Xerjoff bottles and you think they're excellent quality but you're not a fan..? 🤔 That's kinda interesting 😅 You must be a collector then? Or a huge fan of the bottle design with a lot of extra money heheh 😁

Yes, collector🙂

@DocPetar it definitely does seem to be the case, haha

Personally I think Xerjoff suffers massively from quality control. Seemingly hundreds of fragrances, loads of releases every year, all at insane price points. Its the temu of luxury, pumped out without rhyme or reason. Eventually something good does come out. 

An interesting take.

I disnt know this, ill look into it for sure. Thanks for the heads up