Strange Article on Patriotic Bestseller Perfumes: Discuss {Fragrance News} {Scented Thoughts}

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"Judging from besteller lists of fragrances around the world, shoppers prefer scents created by or associated with their compatriots.

Fair enough. Here is an article in the fashion section of The Independent today entitled Trendwatch: Global beauty customers are patriotic with their customers, that wants to demonstrate that consumers prefer to shop for national brands when it comes to electing their favorite scents (or that they at least tend to instinctively gravitate towards made-in-their-home-country blends.)

In fact, we know that perfumes are often custom-sized to general cultural preferences and attempt to fit snuggly within a certain national or regional market like in the case of the well-known, well-publicized Asian predilection for light perfumes.

But this article states as facts things that do not make sense and might lead you to think that, perhaps, the desire to prove a theory or to sell a product was stronger than the facts themselves.

The piece says that in the US currently (at Sephora at least), the top 3 fumes are American brands: Michael Kors Very Hollywood, Marc Jacobs Lola, and... Leslie Blodgett's Perfume Diaries Bare Skin!!! The exclamation points only apply, for the moment, to the latter.

The problem is that the perfume has not officially launched yet.

I, in fact, am aware of this as I received a mail today outlining the dates of the upcoming launch and telling me the dedicated website just went up. The perfume is currently only available to Beauty Insiders at Sephora and the article is saying that it's a national trend!..

Going to the Sephora site I see that Bare Skin is listed as a Weekly Pick. If the journalist just looked superficially at the site to draw his or her conclusions, maybe that person forgot to click on the right tab. Because when we go to the next tab, Best Sellers, the top trio now excludes Bare Skin and now includes Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue as its #2 bestseller, an Italian brand whose licensee is the American Procter & Gamble Prestige Products based in Geneva. What can I say, but... Mamma mia! But what I really mean is that -- reality check -- the perfume is not out yet on a meaningful national plane and is restricted-access.

Then there is some hesitation over the fact that the #2 bestseller at Sephora France now is, rats, Paco Rabanne 1 Million. Paco is Spanish says the article, but lives in Paris. What's the point here? Paco Rabanne perfumes is part of Puig, a Spanish group. Paco Rabanne has conducted his whole career in Paris and presented his first collection there in 1966. Plus, he is arguably more emblematic of the styles of the 60s and 70s than of a geographic locale.

Then, the coup de grâce, now Clinique is not American anymore but French!

"French brands such as L'Occitane, Compagnie de la Provence or Clinique also have quite an impressive standing among Asian customers (much more so than US products, for example)."

If the journalist means the Clinique brand owned by the Estée Lauder Companies, I am not aware that it has retained a separate national identity. Even if it recently got a French passport, I do not think of Clinique as a French label. But what I do know is that the name of the brand is French indeed and was inspired to its founders by signs read on the streets in Paris during a trip. They thought it was cool, looked serious and had that sexy ingredient for a beauty product, the French touch. Does it sound French? Yes. Is it French? No. It's American. So, US products are not doing too shabbily in Asia, if the rest of the data is correct.

In the end, I think it's more about cramming in an article, signed by Relaxnews it seems, rather than shilling products, like, say subliminally make people believe that Leslie Blodgett's perfume is a national US bestseller right now so that the herd instinct will push them to rely on this implicit recommendation. But, please, The Independent is a national British newspaper read internationally, what's this?

Here is the article

Previous Posts in Fragrance News:

The Brits Love their Celebrity Fragrances

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X Factor Perfumes in the Making, will be Ready for Christmas

Posted by Marie-Helene Wagner on October 9, 2009 | Permalink

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