Confidential Perfumery: History and Definition of Niche and Exceptional Perfumes

The origins of perfume to better understand its appearance

Originally, perfume was sacred. The oldest of perfumes is Egyptian; Kyphi was mainly intended for fumigation for the gods. Let us recall that the etymology testifies to the importance of the celebration of this practice of fumigation, per fumare in Latin means through smoke.

The first alchemist perfumer named Tapputti was mentioned on a Mesopotamian tablet in 2000 BC.
The first Attar was mentioned in an Indian Ayurvedic text in the 7th century AD. Attar is a perfume made from natural oils (flowers, woods, herbs, spices). The Greeks embraced perfume for hygiene and health purposes with significant use of baths and massages with scented oils.

In the 11th century, floral scents were imported to Europe from Arabia with the Crusades and the transport of spices.
In the Middle Ages, it was recognized that perfume could heal. During this period, medicinal perfumes, the Aqua Mirabilis, were manufactured in monasteries using the still.

It was only in the 14th century that the use of alcohol in perfume became more common. The Queen of Hungary’s Water is one of the first alcoholic preparations that highlighted its medicinal virtues. At that time, these potions treated miasmas and were drunk.

The Golden Age of the Renaissance and Versailles

The art of perfume prospered during the Renaissance period, notably thanks to Catherine de’ Medici’s personal perfumer, René the Florentine. With Louis XIV, the most perfumed king in history, who preferred to rub his body with perfumed towels rather than take a bath.

He had the will to promote French perfumery; it was under his reign that glovers received the authorization to proclaim themselves perfumers. Under the reign of Louis XV, the Court of Versailles was nicknamed the Perfumed Court and Eau de Cologne made its appearance (cf. Eau de Cologne).

Napoleon and Eau de Cologne

Eau de Cologne was prescribed by doctors; Napoleon I was an unconditional fan for its fresh and invigorating notes. The Emperor consumed it without moderation, on average one bottle per day; it is claimed that he drank a few drops before each battle to give himself energy.

Then Eau de Cologne was prescribed solely for external use. In 1853, Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain created L’Eau Impériale dedicated to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. An Eau de Cologne custom-made with calming virtues to treat her frequent migraines, this one was orchestrated with an overdose of orange blossoms with soothing properties.

Modern Perfume

Modern Eau de Parfum, with the addition of some synthetic products in the 1800s, conferred creativity, tenacity, modernity, and sillage to perfumes; this was the beginning of its commercialization. The renowned perfume houses starting from the year 1774 were LT Piver, Lubin, Roger Gallet, Guerlain, Caron, and Coty. The latter offered perfumes at more affordable prices. He was also one of the first to advertise on posters or on his own vans.

Fashion houses gradually eclipsed some of the great perfume houses during the 20th century. The fashion of the couturier-perfumer was born with Paul Poiret and Les Parfums de Rosine in the 1910s, followed by the Houses of Chanel, Patou, Lanvin, and Rochas. The phenomenon exploded after the Second World War with Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain, Nina Ricci, then Hubert de Givenchy, Yves Saint Laurent, etc.

Après l’Ondée, L’Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Shalimar by Guerlain, Tabac Blond by Caron, and many others, were mostly created between 1900 and 1925, but their democratization and that of perfume in general arrived during the “Trente Glorieuses” (the thirty glorious years) with more advertising investment from the 1960s and an increase in household purchasing power with the emergence of the middle class.

Marketing in Perfumery

The emergence of advertising and marketing signaled the democratization of perfume. Brands now wanted to sell to the greatest number. For this, a beautiful presentation was essential with the creation of a beautiful bottle and its box and highlighting by a muse. The major brands still launched a perfume every 10 years in the 1970s.

Then, the pace of launches accelerated sharply, to the point of saturation. From the 1990s and especially since the 2000s, the phenomenon of variations or flankers exploded and sometimes tended to trivialize luxury perfume and high-end perfume.

The customer becomes less attached to the quality and creativity of a fragrance or the emotion it procures, but more to the brand or the message conveyed by the advertising campaign. Perfume tends to become a fashion accessory, a trendy product.

These perfumes sold in selective distribution in large perfume chains are launched via very expensive marketing campaigns that often feature big names from the cinema or models with unreal beauty. Let us remember that a perfume must be chosen and adopted with the tip of one’s nose and according to one’s desires and own personality.

Alongside the major classic international brands, alternative brands have therefore developed over time to respond to this desire for uniqueness.

Several traditional houses prefigured this movement such as Santa Maria Novella (1812), Creed (1760), or Penhaligon’s (1870). During the 20th century, we saw the emergence of the House of Diptyque and L’Artisan Parfumeur with Jean François Laporte (1976). L’Artisan Parfumeur wanted to rebel against classic brands and American brands, and especially against “all-marketing” and consumer tests that smooth out rough edges in order to please the greatest number.

A provocation followed later by many others: Annick Goutal in 1980, Patricia de Nicolaï in 1989, Serge Lutens in 1992, Jo Malone in 1994, etc. These houses preferred to favor creativity by launching differentiating, creative, and assertive niche perfumes, betting on the quality of their creations.

All these houses generally had unique and sober bottles, names often evocative of the raw material of the perfume such as Mûre et Musc, Mimosa pour moi by L’Artisan Parfumeur, Ambre Sultan by Serge Lutens, Angélique sous la pluie by Frédéric Malle.

The Emergence of Niche Perfumes

Following the founding houses, many others were created, choosing a differentiating and elitist positioning = literary angle for the House of Frédéric Malle, transgressive for État Libre d’Orange, minimalist for Le Labo, or very sophisticated for Kilian.

We also see independent perfumers or creative directors composing independently: Olivia Giacobetti is one of the pioneers. Alberto Morillas, Francis Kurkdjian, Olivier Cresp, Michel Almairac, Roja Dove, Sylvaine Delacourte, Sonia Constant, Chantal Ross, Jean Michel Duriez, etc.

Thus, today two main types of perfumeries face each other: brands sold in chains and confidential brands that are more often found marketed in their own boutiques or in beautiful specialized perfumeries like Sens Unique, Jovoy, Nose, in department stores like Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, Le Bon Marché, La Samaritaine, BHV, in concept stores like Dover Street Market and L’Eclaireur, or on the Internet.

In Italy, traditional perfumeries had, well before other markets, bet on this confidential perfumery.
In the USA, department stores and notably Sephora very quickly understood that they had to integrate an alternative proposition into their stores.

Brand Distribution Becomes More Hybrid

Getting off the beaten track, escaping the classics, the darlings of the present time, and finally finding one’s perfume, the one that will not be the neighbor’s and that will marry one’s deep personality.

Would alternative perfumery be the best answer?

A niche perfume is the fruit of an approach and an act comparable to those of an artisan. During the development of a rare perfume or a luxury perfume, the brand enjoys real freedom, a great freedom of tone.

It wants to tell a real story, to offer a true emotional journey, a fragrance designed with heart, an authentic fragrance that will not be born from a marketing brief and that will not worry about whether the fragrance will please the greatest number or not.

Fragrances are often presented as unisex fragrances, meaning they are perfumes for men and women, because it is a perfumery where emotion is at the center of the discourse. Luxury perfumes are today increasingly coveted by perfume enthusiasts, more and more numerous, who are looking for a unique fragrance, a luxury perfume, different and rarely worn.

Being increasingly educated and open to new experiences, customers are looking for a different perfumery. They want to know the behind-the-scenes of perfume, follow expert accounts on the internet and social networks to benefit from their advice. They want to adopt a niche perfume with raw materials rarely used in mass-market perfumery or with unprecedented olfactory effects, bold choices.

Lovers of niche perfumes and rare perfumes seek singularity because they are olfactorily educated and prefer the fragrance itself to all other elements of the marketing mix. The customer seeks rarity and difference.

These specialized perfumeries, where one only finds niche perfumes, generally have few references and brands that the owners have chosen because they corresponded to their taste.

The owners or advisors of these confidential perfumeries are generally experts or enthusiasts; they take the time to advise their clientele, the goal for them is to build loyalty by finding one or several ideal fragrances.

For the most part, they also want to make them live unprecedented experiences in order to educate them: olfactory and gustatory experience at the same time, scent cups, scented fans, sensory cabins by Frédéric Malle, large perfume filters at Iunx, conferences, perfume creation workshops, etc.

Perfume consultations are often proposed to help the customer find their signature perfume. Advisors are generally very well trained; the confidential brand invests a lot in the training of advisors. Training is not organized as in a prestige brand; it is mainly the creators who inform and train their customers themselves.

These rare brands do little advertising; they bet on the importance of the boutique with communication established essentially thanks to press articles and blogs. Their fragrances are not tested by consumer panels but internally or with their partners. If they are not intended to please the greatest number, they must nevertheless sell.

Why Are Rare Niche Perfumes More Expensive?

Bottles are often identical from one fragrance to another because the brand does not have enough volume of sold perfumes to afford a bottle per reference, except for some that are starting to have a little notoriety. The quantities of bottles, packaging, perfume concentrates ordered from their respective suppliers are smaller, so they cost them more.

These brands generally do not skimp on the price of the perfume concentrate; they privilege beautiful natural raw materials or beautiful molecules which can also be expensive. The concentration is generally more generous, with an offer of Eaux de Parfum rather than Eaux de Toilette.

In summary, they want to offer their customers creativity that is not hindered by heavy profitability imperatives. Other players take advantage of this new niche to offer fragrances positioned as expensive without actually offering added value in exchange.

Luxury perfume does not mean ostentatious; the price does not necessarily justify the quality of a product. Nowadays, there is such a plethora of offers that it becomes difficult to choose, so much do the best and the worst rub shoulders.

Classic international brands sometimes spend disproportionate sums to succeed in an international launch with colossal investments in terms of communication (muse, major digital supports, TV, cinema).

Their fragrances are launched with great reinforcement of consumer tests in order to please the greatest number, sometimes to the detriment of originality, creativity, or the quality of the perfume.

Of course, this trend towards more original, creative, or rare perfumes has not escaped these major brands, which hastened to create, for the most part, another category in their offer: private collections or exclusives; this trend appeared as early as 2004. Some of these houses proposed from that year a supreme luxury service with a high-end proposition: bespoke perfumes and luxury perfumes (cf. Bespoke Perfume).

Recently, almost all niche perfume houses having reached a significant size (Frédéric Malle, Atelier Cologne, Diptyque, Penhaligon’s, Jo Malone, Creed, L’Artisan Parfumeur, Goutal) have been bought by large groups. They can now be found offered in selective distribution chains like Sephora.

The figures speak for themselves; classic perfumery is slightly in decline, unlike confidential perfumery which gains market share every year.