Saturday Question: What Fragrant Thing Annoys You?

/ AustralianPerfumeJunkies

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Portia

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Hello Fellow Fumies,

At APJ we have a Saturday Question. Everyone gets to chime in with an answer, chat with other responders and it’s a fun event each week. Taking sides never means taking offence and everyone keeps it respectful and light, even though we can sometimes trawl the depths.

The idea is you’ll see it on the weekend or chime in through the week. Hopefully you will come back regularly and see if anyone has responded to your comment and you can reply to them. The aim is to generate real conversation and connection even though we are scattered around the globe.

 

Saturday Question: What Fragrant Thing Annoys You?

Yeah, We all LOVE perfume, fragrance and scent. There are so many reasons to adore the whole adventure BUT isn’t there something that gives you the irits? Makes you shake your head, growl or swear? Something that can really get your goat.

Here is the time you get to unleash that murmer. Let us all know. Maybe you’ve more than one thing that makes you want to punch a wall. Here’s the perfect opportunity to tell the world. I can’t wait to read what you write.

My Answer:

Bad packaging. Those enormous boxes that are impossible to transport. Ridiculous amounts of non degradable buffering. Heavy, hard or poorly thought out packing solutions. Frapin, Xerjoff, Guerlain (exclusives), Juliette Has A Gun (new packaging) I’m looking at you.

Lids that don’t grip strongly. You go to pick up your bottle by the lid and suddenly the juice is hurtling towards the floor. GAH! Bloody annoying. How often have you had to put your foot in the way of impending disaster. OUCH! It makes me not want to spritz your scent. Mona di Orio modern bottles are the worst for this, do you think I ever learn? Nope.

Pedestal Boxes. SO freaking annoying! You go to pick your box up from its drawer or box and halfway to where you’re about to place it all hell breaks loose. Suddenly there are bottles, bases and bits everywhere. Rarely does the box survive even the first fall and sometimes the bottle breaks as well. CHANEL, Le Galion, Mona do Orio again, Penhaligon’s STOP IT!

If you own a fragrant house or perfume company and you are using pedestal boxes then you should be ashamed. They are so bloody annoying and they don’t even look good. You want to be luxurious? Maria Candida Gentile Exultat is my favourite box. Super heavy card, full lift off lid, still maintains the boxes integrity when open and isn’t a HUGE case.

GRRRR! End rant

My Saturday Question to you is:

What Fragrant Thing Annoys You?

49 thoughts on “Saturday Question: What Fragrant Thing Annoys You?”

  1. I thought this meant a fragrance that gets up my nose, and I was going to say walking past a Subway shop. The smell of their bread baking is disgusting

    As to perfume things that tick me off, my number one would have to be vintage bottles where the glass stopper has become irretrievably jammed. I have a few of these, with potentially gorgeous juice inside, but the bloody things refuse to move. I’ve gone online and read all kind of sure-fire ways of getting them out, and none of them work.

    Liked by 1 person

  2. Dab samples that you have to use your bloody teeth to get the stupid plastic lid off – or fiddle around with so that it suddenly comes out and the perfume spills all over your fingers. I know spray samples can be pricey to do, but come up with a better top please.

    Liked by 5 people

    • There’s worse: those “wet wipe” samples! Seriously, those are totally pointless and how is one supposed to “try” any perfume with that?!

      Liked by 1 person

    • I buy dab samples, but sometimes regret it. On some samples the top is both difficult to get off and to put back.

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  3. Niche houses that churn out exact copies of scents that smell like that which was once obtainable in a drugstore 40 years ago for a fraction of the cost. Not necessarily crap, but some real beauties. Case in point, Dryad, which is gorgeous but bloody expensive, smells like something from my distant past which would have been highly affordable.

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    • I have to disagree with your rant: you can’t expect handmade or even produced somewhere boutique qualities of perfumes with expensive ingredients to cost as something that was factory produced in thousands if not millions. The cost is picked up on each step – buying small quantities of ingredients, producing and transporting small number of bottles and other packaging, cost of development/perfumer fee spread over the number of bottles one expects to sell. Even samples production would cost differently based on the scale and method.
      … and the funny thing is that on my skin Dryad was awful, and I still can’t believe how many people say they love it 🙂 So, my objection is rather a general one.

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    • I am with you Brigitte. Many niche houses bet on the fact that most consumers have not smelled classics and they are frequently true. I am both amazed and pissed off at people who buy an expensive niche perfume at awful prices and claim this is the best thing they have ever smelled while not even willing to pay 1/10 of the price for an original classic with better composition and ingredients. I think 95 percent of the people in the fragrance forums are into perfumes (I am particularly thinking about guys) not because they are fascinated by the art of smell but because:

      1. They hope it will get them laid
      and/or
      2. They just want to brag and flex muscles that they purchased an expensive perfume.

      I have lost count of the posts in which one declares a new expensive acquisition a masterpiece and the best thing to touch his nose and puts it for sale just a week or two weeks later 😀

      But then this is true in most hobbies.

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    • Isn’t the key here ‘once obtainable’ Brigitte? I find very very little mainstream perfume these days that doesn’t smell like chemicals macerated in something sweet or prickly in a mean way. I am sorry I missed the old days, but I’m very glad to have things that smell good. (Pretty much my sole criteria, although there are price points I won’t touch.)

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  4. I’m with all of the above, with dab samples with those plastic lids being the worst offender. Adding no travelsprays or 30 ml available of a scent, although I understand it may often be a cost thing, especially for small businesses.

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    • I remember Arielle Shoshana talking about this on NST. The cost of smaller bottles was quite prohibitive for a small brand. But bigger brands don’t have that excuse…

      Liked by 1 person

  5. Your packaging woes resonate with me. So unnecessary to giant boxes – but in the Instagram world we live in – people actually watch unboxings of these things. Dabber samples – so messy. (As an aside, I hope that Twisted Lily someday invests in a laser printer for their sample labels because I have a baggie of hopelessly smeared inkjet label samples from them.)

    Liked by 2 people

    • You should send them an e-mail about it! Without a user feedback they might not even think about this issue. Not a complaint but just a friendly suggestion from a repeat customer.

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  7. All my pet peeves involve restrictions! First, like many, I hate that I can rarely smell classic perfumes the way they were created, because of IFRA regulation. I don’t understand why they can’t just require detailed labeling of potential allergens, maybe combined with a higher cap that allows for the classic perfume formulas, and let adults decide whether or not to buy or wear the fragrances. No one has ever died, to my knowledge, from wearing or smelling a perfume with oakmoss. Second: shipping restrictions! I mean, no one wants an airplane to catch fire because of perfume, but if DHL and other couriers can get perfumes across oceans without disasters, why can’t someone figure out a more economical, safe shipping method? Third (related to 2nd): restrictions on one’s ability to transport fragrance for personal use via airplane. On my recent trip to Nice, I came home with a few bottles and several samples or minis. I packed them carefully into a clear plastic ziplock bag in my carry-on, dutifully presented the bag for inspection at airport security, and almost faced disaster when the man at the screening machine said my plastic bag was larger than regulation size. Luckily, he was Nicois and he suggested that I divide my preciousses between two smaller bags and give one to my long-suffering husband to transport. Voila! Problem solved, fragrances saved. Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now! Happy Saturday!

    Liked by 3 people

    • I still can’t believe that cigarettes are sold with just a warning while perfumes are being reformulated and butchered beyond recognition! Allergies are real, people do suffer from reaction to perfume ingredients. But not even closely to what might happen with peanut allergy – but still those products that contain them are sold with mere warning and served at restaurants oftentimes even without those leaving it to those who suffers to be proactive and inquire. But those dangerous perfumes had to be banned completely! A-maaa-zing…

      Liked by 3 people

      • Indeed. Heaven forfend that we should make up our own minds about what we put on or in our bodies. Nanny state gone mad.

        Liked by 2 people

      • I know, it’s absurd! People can eat peanuts on airplanes, and airlines aren’t required to carry EpiPens in case some poor soul goes into anaphylactic shock, but oh that perfume! Aargh.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Not sure where you are Undina, but here, cigarette packets all have health warnings in big letter, they come in plain packaging and are not allowed to be displayed in the shops.

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        • But that was exactly my point! Cigarettes that are causing much more serious damages than all perfumes together, are sold with warning on the packaging, while perfumes, instead of getting warning labels on packaging, are being reformulated not to have “dangerous” ingredients – even though danger from those ingredients and perfumes in general are much less serious than those from cigarettes.

          Liked by 1 person

  8. – “Reviewers” who think everything they review is great.
    – Niche brands putting out all kinds of crap already done to death millions of times before and charge you hundreds times more.
    – Niche brand releases with high concepts (mostly gibberish delirium) and little execution.
    – Omnipresent ethyl-maltol.
    – Woody-ambers as base in the majority of recent releases.
    – Ridiculous prices.
    – Raising prices right after receiving a good review from critics. (Should I name them? Yes I will! Naomi Goodsir, Mendittorosa, Auphorie…)
    – Cancerous growth of La Petite Robe Noire flankers.
    – Artificial scarcity and bloated “exclusivity”. (Yes I’m looking at you Iris de Fath!)
    – Reformulated classics that smell anaemic and baseless.

    Liked by 3 people

  9. Scented malls, shops, hotels etc. Its rarely pleasing and probably one of the reasons people are talking about fragrance free places.
    The trope of natural being better than synthetic when in fact some of the worst rashes ive ever got have been from essential oils/natural perfumes.
    Wondering about how much of the industry has thought about sustainability (ingredients, processing, packaging).
    Too many perfumes, too high prices.
    Stopping now 😂

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Reviewers that give a fragrance a bad review because it only lasts 4 days. Sellers on sale sites that take out of focus pictures and are too lazy to list the names of the perfumes they are trying to sell or swap. Niche houses that turn out hundreds of perfumes a month and they all smell the same, but they have “cool” names.

    Liked by 4 people

  11. I agree with many of the commenters before me (though some of the mentioned issues bother me less: e.g., I never pick up my perfumes by the lid), so I won’t repeat them but mention something in addition to them.

    In my opinion, as much as perfume itself matters 100 times more than packaging, when I come across sloppy packaging on perfumes with any price, I start questioning where else in the process they were sloppy (e.g., will my perfume turn in a year because it was blended sloppily?). And when I see a $200+ price tag on a plain rectangular bottle with a paper label, I get annoyed because luxury items are supposed to be well made in all aspects, not just juice itself.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. As has already been mentioned, only dabber samples available, and with the lids squeezed tight into them. Fragrances not available in anything smaller than 100mls. Dodgy sprayer mechanisms that send the Juice dribbling down my arms. And a smaller gripe, not being able to see the amount of juice left in the bottle, though that’s just a minor detail. And finally, my biggie: bad distribution and unavailability of a lot of niche in my country.

    Liked by 3 people

    • I’m with you Cassieflower on all you’ve mentioned here xx Especially your small gripe – not being able to see how much perfume is lefft in the bottle. Highlighted this morning by me picking NR in the black squat square bottle. And over the weekend CDG Jaisalmer…

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  14. Marketing that uses the words “clean”, “toxic”, or “chemicals”.
    Companies cynically aiming for the luxe market who spend $50 on the bottle and the box, and barely 50 cents on the juice.
    All concept, no actual idea.
    Companies who churn out dozens of barely distinguishable scents.
    The term “freshies.”
    Getting parcels held hostage by customs, and having to pay vat on the postage as well as the contents, AND a bloody great big processing fee.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. I second all those sample vial and packaging annoyances in the article and would also add:
    – bottles that are so wide or awkwardly shaped that you need two hands to spray them (the 100ml First is an example)
    – huge toppers and embellishments (e.g. big flowers) that get in the way
    – bottles that don’t stand up (CdG lozenges)
    – really tall bottles that don’t fit on the shelf
    – tacky plastic lids on nice glass bottles
    – packaging that requires multiple steps before you get to the bottle (e.g. a sleeve, then a box then a drawstring bag…)
    As for fragrant things that annoy me, I’d have to say the deodoriser spray that vets use, both in the surgery and on your pet, is really annoying. The effect is one of dog breath and fear, overlaid with laundry powder.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. My complain is similar to Brigitte… why pay too much for an inferior niche clone when you can get the original with better compositions, materials, and much better prices. I applaud niche brands who are original and innovative which is why I have lot of respect for Malle, Lutens, Tauer, Parfum d’Empire, and Tom Ford etc. while I cannot stand Roja Doves and Xerjoffs of the world (apologies to Roja and Xerjoff fans). Tom Ford has introduced lot of novel compositions though some of his perfumes have clearly been inspired by classics, too. Hence, most of my Tom Ford acquisitions are those that are novel compositions while I avoid his perfumes that are clones of classics.

    Perfume brands that invent fictitious histories and stories also piss me off including Roja Dove (pretends to be a perfumer while cannot even create a CK1 if his life depended on it), Creed (entire history is fabricated as well as claims of perfuming royalties and celebrities), Bob & Eight (fictitious JFK story), Montale (invented fictitious story of creating perfumes for Saudi Royals and pretended to be a French perfumer in the early years. It turned out the owner was not a French perfumer but someone from Middle East who was just a marketer) and so on…

    Liked by 3 people

  17. Evaporation! I get bummed when a decant that I stored for a few years has evaporated into an oily film. It’s my own fault for not using it up promptly, but I’m still like CRAP over my decant of Carnal Flower, not gonna lie! Haha!

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  18. I agree with the dab sample rant! I’ve crushed a little vial trying to get it open & also accidentally yanked out the lid spilling it everywhere! Grr. My next complaint is undue hype. Something new comes out, everyone is hyping it up, taking ridiculous pics of it with their high end sports car steering wheels behind it, making it out to be the next big thing… then 2 weeks later they’re all for sale or swap. Come on, let’s be real here. It also drives me nuts that there are so many older scents that are ten steps above modern “niche” now, there are modern niche artists, creating new scents, with a different perspective, and innovating. However there are also houses turning out so many releases that I wonder if they’re putting notes in a random generator & just hitting “go!” Over & over, then charging stupid prices. I also despise decant evaporation. Dammit! That’s the worst! Try to save something lovely for a special occasion only to find it gone! What! Boo! I also get pissed at some mini stoppers or stoppers in general. When they have that little plastic bit that fits over the glass part, then you pull the stopper & the plastic part gets stuck INSIDE the neck of the bottle, trapping your precious juice inside! Ugh! I hate it! Just make a damn decent little glass in glass stopper & quit with the crap. Grr. End rant(s) lol

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  19. Cheap plastic caps on otherwise beautiful fragrance bottles annoys me most. Why can’t the company just spend a little more to top the bottle with glass like the bottle?
    Not so much of an annoyance but rather a disappointment, is fleeting scents that disappear from my skin far too quickly.

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