The 1980s are back. Not the economic boom or Duran Duran, but the shoulder pads, layered hair, and eel skin bags. Fresh from an evening of watching Dynasty, I spent time this afternoon rummaging through a trendy clothing resale shop, and I flipped past many a sequined blouse and whopper-bow-adorned formal. All that was missing were gashes of coral blush. It got me thinking: could perfume trends turn toward the ’80s? If not, what perfume trends are coming up?

At the counter with my loot, I asked the baby-faced cashier what he thought about perfume. He twirled his Magnum P.I. mustache (popular in these parts now) and said, “I don’t know. I don’t wear odors — no deodorant, nothing. I rely on pheromones.” The sledgehammer style of 1980s perfume won’t gain a lot of ground here.

Right now, perfumes with a silky wood base, or a clean musk and wood dry down, crowd department store shelves….

Read the rest of this article »

Designers, illustrators and photographers can also make a great contribution to this reforestation project…

Read the rest of this article »

Deal at kohls: all fragrances marked down 10%.

Ayala Moriel has launched Frangipanni Gloves, a new limited edition fragrance for women. Proceeds will benefit the Bloedel Floral Conservatory in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver…

Read the rest of this article »

It's an easy trap to fall into - up to 97 per cent of the cost of producing a conventional perfume goes on marketing, packaging and advertising. The liquid in the bottle can represent as little as 3 per cent of the total cost of production.

As 'professeur de parfum' and founder of the Haute Parfumerie at Harrods, Roja Dove laments, 'I think most people don't actually smell fragrances anymore. People are so influenced by marketing that people buy scents that they don't really like.'

— From Perfume: how natural are you willing to go? at Ecologist. The article includes a list of recommended natural perfumes.

Now Smell This celebrates its fifth birthday today. It figures that today of all days, the blog went down in the wee morning hours, and so this post is much later than I thought it would be. Now that we’re back, a slice of virtual cake for everyone, and I hope you’ll forgive us while we indulge in a little navel-gazing.

In early 2005, I was an avid — ok, obsessive — perfume fan. At that time, if you wanted to keep track of all the sorts of things that a perfumista wants to keep track of — what new perfumes were coming out? who might be having a great sale? — you had your work cut out for you. You could read all the magazines, you could slog through all the posts on the various forums, and you could check out Women’s Wear Daily on Friday. There was one French website that kept a simple list of upcoming perfumes, and that was helpful, but by and large there was no one place, online or off, that collected and organized all the news.

In the meantime, I was also discovering blogs, and in February 2005 I started looking around for a perfume blog. I couldn’t find one that was active, and that was that: I figured that as long as I was wasting so many hours collecting information, I might as well do something with it. I spent a few days setting up a blog (I wish I’d kept a screen shot so I could show you how ugly — and how pink! — it was), and on Tuesday, February 8 I made my first post…

Read the rest of this article »

According to market researcher NPD, sales of so-called prestige fragrances — typically the high-end, designer scents sold by department stores — fell 10 percent in 2009 from the prior year. This was a sharp acceleration of the 6 percent decline from 2007 to 2008, and a 1 percent decline from 2006 to 2007.

With a bad situation turning worse, the fragrance manufacturers — who are often secretive, and most certainly fiercely competitive — are banding together to do a national campaign to encourage men and women who use perfumes and other scented products, to do so more often.

— From Can One Ad Change Everything for the Fragrance Industry? at CNBC. The article discusses the Fragrance Foundation's new One Drop campaign; if you haven't yet seen the website, check out One Mighty Drop.

Calvin Klein will launch Eternity Aqua, a new woody aquatic fragrance for men, this spring. The new scent is “about effortless elegance and refinement, but with a little zest”…

Read the rest of this article »

Deal at b-glowing: spend $90 and get a free gift valued at $48 (items from Umi & Lalicious) using coupon code FEBLUV, good through 2/15 or while supplies last.

New at miomia: Histoires de Parfums Moulin Rouge pre-order. The first 10 customers will also get a free Moulin Rouge keychain and a Histoires de Parfums 1969 roll-on.

Deal at rich-hippie: buy one get one free. No coupon code needed, just put the name of the cheaper fragrance in the comments box in all caps. Offer good through 2/14.