The not-so-great Z-14 reformulation debate ?

Over at the FromPyrgos blog (http://frompyrgos.blogspot.com), the author seemed to feel a need to “prove” that I am wrong about Z-14, namely that is has been reformulated into something very different. As I made clear in that blog post, this was largely based upon the opinion of others, because I haven’t tried the newest, non-oakmoss formulation. However, the oakmoss EA version contains a bit too much lavender for me (and it doesn’t seem like it’s very high quality either), whereas the original Halston version seems to have more galbanum and less lavender, and is nicely balanced (though I still may prefer vintage Santos, which is a similar scent). Below I will quote some of the opinions about Z-14 that were posted on what I consider to be the best Basenotes.net thread on the subject, which you can find at:

http://www.basenotes.net/t/287822/halston-z-14-old-formulation-vs-new-formulation

OK, I just sprayed the old version of Z-14 with Oakmoss listed in the ingredients. Even before spraying, I smelled the nozzle and it smelled really dark and deep. Immediately after spraying I get intense natural smelling citrus with spice in the background. In the “non oakmoss version”, I didn’t get this flavorful bouquet of citrus, instead I detected a strong astringent/biting scent that was rough and sharp. All smooth so far in the old version though.

With my nose up close to this (oakmoss included blend), I literally feel the scent tickling my nose hairs (with a heat-like feel) as it rises off my skin. Again, this was non-existent in the treemoss only blend.

When EA took over Z-14 they may or may not have toned down the potency of the juice a little, yet it smelled like the same product. But recently they completely changed the ingredients (not just oakmoss), and the result is a disaster. Big Red chewing gum, in mist form. Since this change (to the new Garbage labeled Z-14), there still exists the true formula on some store shelves and on Ebay. Usually it is in a gift set, not box.

My little splash bottle from Ross has definitely got to be the new formulation since it smells like cheap cinnamon dentist tooth cleaner and coumarin. Truly awful. Even though I don’t like leather, I’m very curious to try the older version now.

Another easy way to tell which one you have…..the good version has prominent citrus opening, like a lemon gumdrop or lemon hard candy.

The new version is just rough and irritating in the opening.

The one with oakmoss dated to January 2011. The one without oakmoss dated to June 2011. So I guess it’s safe to say that the reformulation took place somewhere between those dates, and any from 2010 contain oakmoss.

The one without oakmoss was TERRIBLE. It had no warmth or depth at all; all I got was big red with a touch of cigarette tar (and a very mild touch at that). It lacked the nice citrus that the older one had as well.

Okay, I do want to say first off that the old juice is different than the new. The new Z-14 is of course based on the old; it’s not completely different. They both have cinnamon. I agree with several posters who note that the new juice has almost no citrus, while the old has a distinct pleasing round lemon accord at the opening.

Secondly, I will confirm jclaxton’s prediction that I would like the old juice, while I thought the new is utter trash. It’s really, really good.

I put both formulas on my skin to compare. The old juice has a balance, depth and roundness to it which the new completely lacks. The new juice is harsh and almost medicinal, very synthetic, and lacks also the detailed flourishes of spice and other notes in the old juice. I don’t think calling the new juice “Big Red” is particularly helpful, as Big Red is basically the smell of cinnamic aldehyde, which both formulas have a good amount of. However, I will stick to my description of the new formula as highly reminiscent of American dentists’ tooth polish, the stuff they put on the rotary applicator: bitter, synthetic, harsh cinnamon and hygiene chemicals.

Other than the lemon opening, the heart of the old juice has a fullness to it that the new completely lacks. It feels as if huge chunks of the true formula were simply ripped out to make the new juice, maybe replaced with overdoses of some other ingredients that were already present but in much lower dosage. To top it off, the old juice had far better longevity on my skin, retaining its round cinnamon appeal in a rather consistent fashion, while the reformulation dropped off considerably at the 90 minute mark. Yet another sign of cheap formulation

Over at Fragrantica.com, two of the reviewers I trust the most had these comments:

It [vintage formulation] has a smokey, hazy richness that made me feel warm. I was clueless about the notes in the 1970s, yet loved that rich potent “woodiness” that I would later discover was chypre. This was a leather chypre that worked best on winter nights, like ancient temple smoke. In the summer it is pure campfire smoke…

Enter EA Fragrance, Jeff Gordon and the sythetic plastic reformulation. Another icon is smashed.

And:

…it [the vintage formulation] wears wonderfully and projects very well. Oakmoss, amber, musk, tonka bean and the key base note of leather allow the entire chypre composition on top to present itself, vividly. I love the blend of the spices with the green/herbal notes (including the patchouli in the heart). Great interplay between notes – but I rather not over-think this one. Along with the leather and warm base, there is simply no other fragrance like it. Once you have worn Vintage Z-14, you now have an understanding of what a benchmark masculine scent should smell like. Put away the castrated juice of today and enjoy what this has to offer in its true form.

If I were to consider buying the newest formulation of Z-14, why would I pay attention to the opinion of the author of FromPrygos? He clearly does not seem to perceive or enjoy scents the way I do, whereas others (who disagree with him about Z-14′s latest incarnation) do. He certainly has a right to his opinion, just as I have a right to disagree with it entirely. Perhaps he has a low sensitivity to oakmoss whereas I have a high sensitivity, but that is not something to debate; it’s just reality. One should understand these kinds of factors and make decisions accordingly. Unfortunately, he seems to think there is some objective standard to appreciating scents and that he understands that standard better than anyone else in the world! Are we supposed to trust his “nose” even when we are smelling the opposite of what he claims? Remember the old saying about trusting your “lying eyes?”

NOTE: Over the last couple of months I have worn scents with strong oakmoss much more often than at any other time in my life.

Praising the underrated Miglin boys, Pheromone and M Men Sandalwood !

In the previous post I talked about the radical transformation of Halston’s 1-12 and Z-14, now reduced to a scent that probably wouldn’t pass the dollar store knockoff test, meaning that they don’t smell much like the original versions. In the case of 1-12 that comes from personal experience, whereas with Z-14 I am taking the word of Basenotes.net members who have found the latest, non-oakmoss version to be unacceptable. If you like these two new formulations, that’s fine, but my only suggestion is to try some dollar store scents and see if you might be better served by buying a dozen of those rather than one Z-14 or 1-12 bottle. I know that I’d take the dozen without a second thought.

In the case of the two Miglin scents, we see the opposite, which are two incredible “powerhouse” scents that you can still obtain at low prices. As I write this I notice that there is a new 100 ml bottle of the M Men Sandalwood scent for less that $35 total (and you also get a 9 ounce bottle of hydrating balm as well)! And there’s a new 100 ml Pheromone for Men at less than $34 (both are buy it now auctions). Why spend $10-15 on what is essentially a knockoff (ir that) when you can spend a little more for one of these? If you could spend $1000 more and buy a Lamborghini rather than the least expensive Hyundai, would you do it (all else being equal)?

Unfortunately, few among the aficionado (or “wannabe” aficionado) crowd seem to know about scents like the Miglins, from what I’ve read over the years, especially at Basenotes. There is much more talk about the “feminine,” Mitsouko, for example, than there is about this powerful “masculine” chypre, Pheromone for Men. Rather than Mitsouko’s strong peach note, Pheromone features a unique “green” quality. When I was young we lived next to an empty lot that was overgrown with weeds and while this scent does not smell exactly like that, it does evoke that quality. It’s not sharp, like violet leaf notes, nor does it have the “solidity” of galbanum, bur rather it’s got just some softness to it that complements the chypre base very well.

Sure, it’s not for everyone, being terribly “dated” in some ways, though it’s only slightly animalic, compared to Kouros, for example. With M Men Sandalwood, they seem to have diluted Pheromone about 50% and added a mild but very good sandalwood note. This makes it better suited to warmer weather and to me, more dynamic. I’m not a huge fan of Mitsouko-like chypres mainly because they seem to have very simple dynamism that just goes on for hours. The chypres of the 1970s (I’m thinking mostly of the “feminine” ones) seem to have solved that problem, though at the expense of being rather harsh, especially to contemporary sensibilities. I’ve had to wear them a few times before I could begin to enjoy them !

I wish I knew the economics of some scents, especially these two Migllin ones as well as Z-14 and 1-12, though with the latter I’d want to know how the newest formulations sell, and I think that would require waiting until the old formulations are almost all gone and 99% of the public that is using one of these two have only the newest formulation. Do more “sophisticated” buyers purchase the Miglins whereas the “rabble” go for the Halstons? I doubt it is this simple, but the difference between something like the latest 1-12 and these two Miglins is so vast it’s hard to imagine the same person owning both bottles. Perhaps he got one as a gift but couldn’t wrap his mind around it and never wears it or just “regifted” it. In any case, if you want strong, high-quality ingredients in rather “old school” compositions, I suggest you put your Chanel and Guerlain dreams aside and consider these two “ass-kickers.” You will pay about what the latest formulation Caron “masculines” cost but get clearly superior ingredients, IMO.

NOTE: I have no affiliation with Miglin nor any company. I try to “call them as I see them,” but as I’ve mentioned before, my sensitivity changes somewhat over time (back and forth), though lately it’s been in a fairly tight range. In this case, low-quality ingredients often cause me major problems when my sensitivity is high. When that happens the “laundry” or other modern musks really smell terrible and overbearing, and Iso E Super is migraine-inducing (at least in the scents that contain a great deal of it). If this kind of thing happens to you, I suggest you refrain from wearing such scents for two weeks if not more. If you find yourself craving the scent, then go ahead and wear it, but at least wait until you have some desire to do so before going back to it within a short period of time. Take the cap off and smell it that way first, and only wear it if it doesn’t bother you at all.

The disintegration of the fabulous Halston brothers, Z-14 and 1-12.

Perhaps a year ago, a thread about Z-14 appeared on Basenotes.net. Someone claimed that there was a new formulation that contained a lot of cinnamon but no oakmoss (and was quite bad), and apparently some of them went on a “vintage hunt” for boxes that listed oakmoss. In this case it was claimed that both were made by EA Fragrances, and the suggestion was made that this company reformulated Z-14 this way in order to conform to the latest IFRA quidelines. I’m writing this post because I now have experience with several different formulations of these two and it seems to me that they are an excellent example of how scents can travel a rather strange road after more than one reformulation.

About a week ago, I acquired some vintage Z-14 (made by Halston), and a couple weeks before that acquired some by French Fragrances (Miami). I’ve had the original 1-12 for a year or so, after sampling the new EA version and an earlier one. My guess is that the only ones I haven’t sampled are the French Fragrances version of 1-12 and the newest version of Z-14. When I sampled the original Z-14 I was struck by how much galbanum it seemed to have, and the thought crossed my mind that the names came from two samples being chosen, the twelfth and the fourteenth. I’d further speculate that there was one perfumer, and that he or she was just thinking in terms of variations on a theme, rather than significantly different scents, whereas once the formulating was out of Halston’s hands the two went in significantly different directions.

Now I’d like to quote the lists of notes for these two scents (taken from Fragrantica.com), starting with Z-14:

Top notes are cypress, gardenia, green notes, basil, bergamot and lemon; middle notes are coriander, patchouli, cinnamon, jasmine, vetiver, cedar and geranium; base notes are leather, tonka bean, amber, musk, benzoin and oakmoss.

And for 1-12:

Top notes are green notes, mandarin orange, galbanum, basil, bergamot and lemon; middle notes are carnation, juniper berries, lavender, jasmine and pine tree needles; base notes are labdanum, tonka bean, amber, musk, oakmoss, vanilla and cedar.

The EA Z-14 I have seems to emphasize lavender and gardenia, whereas the French Fragrances one is the spiciest and most ambery. The original has the strongest “green notes” but is otherwise the best balanced. With 1-12, the original is also the best balanced and after an hour or so it is perhaps best thought of as a complex chypre. The first EA formulation has a stronger “soapy” lavender quality and the latest, with no moss of any kind listed on the box, was spicy and had a “cheap” bubble bath product type of quality. I’m not saying it was “bad,” and for the prices it sells for I can’t say it’s a “bad deal,” but the difference between that one and the original is so vast I doubt that more than a few who have experienced any previous formulation will fail to recognize it.

And so we are back to the subject of my previous post. EA reformulated 1-12 to be at least recognizable up until this latest formulation, from what I can gather, so it doesn’t seem they are doing this because they are going to save a huge amount of money. Instead, they may have tried to create something similar to the original within the new guidelines and decided it was not possible, or that it was better to just create something “pleasant” and hope for the best. They might lose some old customers but the latest formulation might win over some new people to make up the difference. For me the problem with this new 1-12 is that I’d rather wear one of the better dollar store knockoffs. To be sure, there do seem to be natural ingredients that are not too restricted or too expensive, and makers of designer scents have done a good job in those cases.

One example is that of scents that include patchouli, vetiver, and vanilla in the base, often along with tonka, amber, benzoin, or something else to soften it up. If you’ve tried Roadster, Dior Homme, Obsession Night Men or Jacomo for Men (no patchouli here but a similar effect is achieved, suggesting that very little is used in the other three) you may know what I mean. However, even there, when I compared the original CK Cosmetics version of Obsession Night for Men to the newer Coty version I noticed that the base notes seemed to be lessened, removed, or replaced with ingredients designed to create a kind of “fuzzy,” nondescript quality. Needless to say, I would no longer buy a bottle of anything previously made by another company if it had a Coty sticker on the bottom of it. In any case, any scent that used to possess more than a small amount of oakmoss (or some of the other ingredients that might cause problems, according to IRFA) may be unrecognizable to many loyal fans after being reformulated to comply with the latest IFRA guidelines.

As perfumer Chris Bartlett has pointed out:

The bottom line though is that reformulating something is like trying to imitate a fragrance for which the formula is unknown – ten times harder than making one from scratch – no wonder many fragrances are just discontinued instead. Something I frequently have to explain to potential customers who imagine I’m going to be able to make them a version of Shalimar at a fraction of the price…

http://www.basenotes.net/t/292501/ifra-standards-a-summary

Thus, with these new IFRA guidelines it appears that many if not most scents that contained certain ingredients in appreciable amounts (oakmoss perhaps being the most significant one in “masculines”) may be headed for a severe “makeover,” perhaps with a hint of the original in the top notes followed by a fuzzy/muddled drydown. Try to sample the newest 1-12 formulation and see what you think (comment here after you do, if you don’t mind). If you like nondescript pleasantness, this may be the age for you !

What kind of particular are you?

On a thread at Basenotes.net about Patou Pour Homme, I pointed out that one might want to try a scent like Missoni Uomo, rather than thinking that a re-release of the Patou offering will be very similar to the original, especially considering the new IFRA regulations. Someone responded by saying that the Missoni is nothing like PPH.

Fragrantica.com lists the following notes for Missoni Uomo:

Top notes are juniper berries, galbanum, basil, bergamot and lemon; middle notes are coriander, carnation, patchouli, cinnamon, jasmine, vetiver, cedar and rose; base notes are leather, tonka bean, amber, musk, oakmoss and incense.

And these are the notes it lists for Patou Pour Homme:

Top notes are lavender, clary sage and basil; middle notes are patchouli, geranium, vetiver and fir; base notes are leather, civet, vanilla and tonka bean.

The Estonian site (www.parfyym.pri.ee) adds a few more notes, which seems likely, given that it’s not a simple scent:

Petigrain oil, carnation, cinnamon, amber, and sandalwood.

Castoreum is listed there rather than civet, but it’s possible that “civet” may mean castoreum, or vice versa (or both may have been used, but since it’s not a very “dirty” scent at all, I don’t think it would matter to me). Also, the Estonian site lists pine needles rather than fir, so that’s probably meant to be the same thing as well.

Then there is Bijan for Men (1987, not the reformulation), which according to Fragrantica:

…starts off with mandarin, lavender, nutmeg, musk, oakmoss, fruity notes, lemon, bergamot and sage oil. The heart follows with iris, cinnamon, sandalwood, fir, amber, carnation, honey, jasmine, rose, ylang-ylang and tarragon. Base notes include rosemary, clove, patchouli, vetiver, benzoin, cedar, leather, Tonka, vanilla and musk.

Now keep in mind when you see jasmine listed in these old scents it might be of a “dirty” variety and used instead of the word civet. Similarly, you might see sandalwood instead of incense or vice versa, but it could be the exact same thing! You have to figure it out for yourself. In any case, I can certainly understand thinking that the newest formulation of this Bijan scent should not be viewed as similar to PPH. The balance is off and some of the nice woody notes are gone, among other things, but other than differences in top notes, have very similar drydowns. Even vintage 1-12 by Halston isn’t that far off !

However, if the new PPH must comply with IFRA, is it possible for it to be closer to the original PPH than vintage MU or the Bijan? I suppose some people might claim that is the case, but I can’t imagine that being true for my purposes, whether that is due to my enjoyment of rich, deep, natural-smelling notes/accords (not top notes though) or for some other reason. I’ll certainly update this post if and when I get around to sampling the new PPH, and I’d really like to sample it, but I don’t want to spend money on what I think will be disappointing, so I have no intentions of buying a bottle of it “blind.” But I do wonder what people who have put PPH on an olfactory pedestal are smelling, or think they are. The reason is that from what they write it seems like many if not most who post on these kinds of threads aren’t especially good at detecting notes, and so one would think they would be less particular than I am!

Can the PPH fans really detect the slightest hint of rosemary, for example, that the vintage Bijan may have but that PPH does not? Would that be a “dealbreaker” for you? How about if the Bijan was a touch sweeter and more complex (which is my general assessment)? My guess is that if a similar vintage scent were put in an old PPH bottle (from what I’ve read, never having seen one in person, the spray mechanism on those bottles are not sealed, but can be taken off by simply turning them, or they are splash bottles) few would notice a difference. Those few might simply think the scent had a top notes issue of some kind, though if the Bijan were used it might have to be diluted slightly with perfumer’s alcohol. Of course some of them may simply be paying for a few minutes of unique top notes, whether they realize it or not, and if that is important to them, they have every right to value that brief experience as highly as they like.

Putting this one possibility aside, and unlike the author of the FromPyrgos blog (frompyrgos.blogspot.com), I take a completely different view of the “classics”/vintage greats, it appears. Instead of essentially buying the bottle and packaging, regardless of how badly the reformulations to comply with IFRA (or to increase profits) may be, which this person seems to be suggesting, I prefer to compare samples of the expensive vintage ones like PPH to much more affordable ones (my one ounce vintage Bijan for Men cost me $10 total, for example) and see if it fulfills that olfactory desire as well or nearly as well. Because my sensitivity changes somewhat over time (back and forth), there really is no one PPH for me, but rather a kind of zone it inhabits in my “mind’s nose,” and perhaps because of that variability, similar scents usually work out fine, whereas I have rarely found reformulations to be satisfactory.

Are the reformulation skeptics living in “la la land” ?

While some indeed may reside in Los Angeles, I don’t think that is the case for the author of FromPyrgos blog (http://frompyrgos.blogspot.com). In his latest post, he discusses a thread on Basenotes.net about the possible significant reformulation of Epic Man by Amouage. I have yet to sample this scent and did not post to this thread, but I think it’s important to point out that this author is mischaracterizing the thread. Before you proceed further, I suggest you read it for yourself:

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/344504-anyone-notice-that-Amouage-Epic-Man-has-been-reformulated?highlight=chanel+19

Overall, the tone seems to be one of anger, disappointment, and most importantly, agreement with the person who started the thread and thinks the scent is “off” and considerably weaker (with a few people being quite dismissive, despite undeniable evidence to the contrary, which is cited below). One person who commented to the contrary, “Surfacing,” has consistently disagreed with my posts about what I consider to be the most obvious and worst reformulations I’ve encountered, so what should I make of this thread? Clearly, exactly the opposite conclusion that the author of FromPyrgos has! Furthermore, he states:

Don’t take anyone else’s word for it. Trust your own nose only. And if you feel there’s hyperbole or exaggeration in regards to other people’s sentiments, demand real tests, blind comparisons, and the opinions of impartial people.

Does this mean I shouldn’t pay any attention to a person whose reviews I’ve found to be in accord with my own assessments? If I had an unlimited budget and all the time in the world, that would be fine, but in the “real world” it certainly makes more sense to buy vintage and be “safe,” unless of course the price is much higher. And this notion of demanding supposed objectivity is just laughable, suggesting that anonymous people on the internet would never lie about such things! Perhaps most importantly in this context, I could argue that I don’t even trust myself, so how can I trust anyone else? That is, my sensitivity is not constant, and because of that certain notes or accords will come across stronger or weaker sometimes. Usually, once I’m fully awake, I have a feeling that I can handle a strong scent or that I should go for something more subtle, but I’m not always right about this, that’s for sure !

And here again this author contradicts himself, cheering on those who don’t think Epic Man was reformulated while at the same time telling us not to take anyone’s opinion seriously unless they tell us they did rigorous, “blind” testing. On another thread about Zino’s possible reformulation, I asked a skeptical Basenotes member if he thought he was good at detecting sandalwood notes, but he did not reply. That is the kind of information that may be useful if you decide to give weight to a person’s opinion. And as I’ve pointed out there before, even if it appears that changes in bottle designs are indicative of significant changes in formulations, isn’t it possible that some of the old fragrance was put in new bottles or vice versa (to save some money, presumably)? The point is that this is all “guesswork,” but it has been very helpful to me overall (I’d say that my guesses as well as those who seem to “know what they’re talking about” have been over 90% accurate).

Fortunately, certainly for my wallet but perhaps also for my sanity, I’m not actively seeking any particular scent, and in fact often find myself more interested in “back up bottles” than something new, but what I’ve seen with some of the latest reformulations (for example, 1-12 Halston) are fuzzy, nondescript scents with obvious “laundry musk” and a bubble bath type soapiness. Such formulations would have been “laughed out of the building in the “old days.” In the case of 1-12, I have a box made for EA Fragrances that lists oakmoss and tree most, but the newest formulation lists neither! In response to Surfacing’s skepticism about reformulations, another person cited a Basenotes thread created by perfumer Chris Bartlett, which you can read at:

http://www.basenotes.net/threads/292501-IFRA-Standards-a-summary

Mr. Bartlett listed what the latest IFRA ingredient restrictions were, and then someone asked about the use of oakmoss, to which he responded:

I can’t say how much [oakmoss] was in Channel Pour Monsieur but I can say that when I’m making a masculine fragrance to a commission and don’t need to worry about the standards I will typically want to use in the region of 1%. So ten times as much as is now permitted…

This suggests to me that any scent with appreciable oakmoss has indeed been “ruined” if reformulated within the new guidelines. I suspected this would be the case and went on a “vintage hunt” for such scents (mostly “feminines”) beginning about a year ago. From what I understand, 1-12 was never an especially expensive scent, ingredient-wise, so this seems to be an excellent example of one that many will regard as “ruined” due to the newest IFRA regulations. For me, calling the latest formulation 0-12 would make the most sense! Seriously, from everything I’ve read the only reasonable conclusion seems to be that from now on most releases will either be pale reformulations, generic/redundant scents, or “chemical nightmares” (I seem to be particularly sensitive to Iso E Super, for example).

Am I the great and powerful BigslyOz (part 2) ?

In the first part of this post, I pointed out that I didn’t think the position of the author of frompyrgos.blogspot.com made sense, and in fact it sounds a lot like what I expect to hear from overly “negative” people who have a tendency to “catastrophize.” If you have never heard of this concept, this might help “bring you up to speed:”

Catastrophizing is an irrational thought a lot of us have in believing that something is far worse than it actually is. Catastrophizing can generally can take two forms.

The first of these is making a catastrophe out of a situation…

The second kind of Catastrophizing is closely linked to the first, but it is more mental and more future oriented.This kind of Catastrophizing occurs when we look to the future and anticipate all the things that are going to go wrong…

http://psychcentral.com/lib/2007/what-is-catastrophizing/

An even simpler take is:

Catastrophizing has two parts:

Part 1: Predicting a negative outcome.

Part 2: Jumping to the conclusion that if the negative outcome did in fact happen, it would be a catastrophe.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-practice/201301/what-is-catastrophizing-cognitive-distortions

At some point the vintage greats will be gone and I have a feeling that somehow humanity will survive this! At that point, technology may be available that can create fairly good representations of these scents, without the supposed allergy issues that led to IFRA regulations and also without concern for environmental destruction or species extinction (because the products may be entirely created in a lab). Whatever the case may be, some of us live in the present and don’t catastrophize. Those who do may want to look into the way they view things in a more general way, because it’s a lot easier and more fun to live life with a positive outlook, in my experience.

Apparently, this blogger thinks that someone out there will soon be the Robert M. Parker, Jr. in the realm of “fine perfumery,” if this person doesn’t already exist (I certainly don’t think I am that person). I wish he would have told us who this person (or people) is! If we go to the wikipedia article on Parker we learn that: “Parker argues that he scores wines on how much pleasure they give him.” And as with scents, the wine aficionado is not likely to drink the exact same kind of wine whenever he or she pops a cork. However, Parker isn’t going to buy a bottle of wine from a vineyard that once produced a great vintage for that reason alone. In this case, bad weather may had led to a vintage to which he gave a low score. What’s in the bottle is what matters, not the bottle, the vineyard, the company, etc. The author of frompyrgos.blogspot.com may think that any Bordeaux from a particular vineyard should be bought because of past good vintages, lest that winemaker lose money and decide to sell the land to “developers.” Is there any wine aficionado who would agree with this sentiment?

Now as to the effect Parker has had on wine sales, let’s again turn to wikipedia:

There is evidence that Parker’s rating scale has a dual effect on prices and sales, with claims from the wine industry that a Parker top score is valued at potentially £5 million.[4]

When Parker declined to review the 2002 Bordeaux vintage “in barrel,” the vintners were forced to drop their prices.[citation needed]
According to one Bordeaux shipper cited by McCoy, “the difference between a score of 85 and 95 [for one wine] was 6 to 7 million Euros”, and a “bottle rated 100 can multiply its price fourfold.”[19]
Château Quinault, which used to have hard time selling its wine at 100 francs a bottle, saw its 1998 vintage rise in price in half a day to 125 francs after Parker gave it a 92 rating.[32]
According to a 2005 economic analysis, Parker’s scores would inflate the prices of already highly rated wines[33] but, for the less good ones, it would not decrease their sales nor even increase their prices.[34]

Whatever his influence, Parker alone cannot impact the market price for a wine if he is alone against the mainstream. The famous controversy around the Château Pavie 2003 is an example of this: despite Parker’s positive ratings, the wine in bottle sold 30% cheaper than en primeur.

Is the author of frompyrgos.blogspot.com suggesting that some fragrance blogger has more influence in this market than Parker does in the “fine wine” market? It certainly seems that way! My guess is that people like myself will buy up vintage scents we like to the point of at least two or three 100 ml bottles, and then if the prices skyrocket, as occurred a long time ago with Patou Pour Homme, sell one or two. Whatever effect that has, a sharp rise in vintage prices may be more due to the “word getting out” that oakmoss-rich scents or ones with an excellent sandalwood note are largely if not entirely a thing of the past, for example, than anything else. People have a right to want these kinds of scents, just as people at a Southeby’s auction may bid all kinds of “luxury” items up to incredibly high prices at times, including paintings that are available as posters reproductions in a local store for a few dollars! And that leads to an intriguing question: should someone who never wears scents but has some extras space and money be buying up vintage ones thinking that it won’t be long before prices do rise substantially? Isn’t that inevitable, unless new technology is invented that can replicate the vintage greats at low cost? Isn’t that “capitalism 101?”

In sum, what I’ve seen (and I spend more time that I’d like to admit looking through ebay fragrance listings) is a rise in select vintage scents, but this has not happened all at once. Givenchy Gentleman, the first three “masuvline” Lagerfelds, and Chaps are examples of ones that used to sell cheaply until perhaps two years ago. You can still get the reformulated GG for reasonable prices, whereas Chaps is apparently nothing like the vintage formulation (I haven’t tried the new version), and the bottle looks very different. Some rise but then seem to drop for a while, which I’ve seen with Escada’s Magnetism for Men and Vetiver de Puig. Who talks about Vetiver de Puig, even in the Men’s Forum at Basenotes? Yet if you use ebay’s completed auction search you will see that there appears to be a nice little market for this one! Others that do get talked about there and are listed for high prices sometimes sell for very reasonable price (such as London for Men by Paul Smith).

And this brings me to a point I’d like to make about valuing vintage scents. Recently, I was negotiating vintage swap possibilities with two different people. One was Be Bop Pour Homme for Carrington Cologne, while the other was Davidoff Classic for Perry Ellis for Men (1985) and Obsession for Men (all original versions). I own the latter scents, and what I tried to explain to these two people is that it was a blind swap for me and I was giving up popular ones. In the case of the former, I noticed that DC was not selling well relative to the high prices some were offering it for on ebay. The seller insisted it was worth something in that range ($125 for 125 ml), whatever that means (seems like he needed to take an ECO 101 class), but of course I can say the same thing about what I have to offer! In the latter case, I told the person that Carrington Cologne seems to be quite popular (another one that nobody seems to talk about on any site, relative to ones like Patou Pour Homme or Kouros), whereas the sales of BBPH on ebay did not suggest I would get a scent in return that I could sell quickly for more than I could my CC bottle.

These were swaps they wanted because they knew what the ones I had to offer smelled like, whereas I was taking a chance, the point here being that this factor is not the case for swapping most other collectible items, which are not going to be “used” (or used much, such as with collectible automobiles). The main thing is that nobody knows for sure which scent might experience a sharp rise in ebay prices. I have had some scents that now sell well and at high prices (such as Envy for Men), and one could argue that I shouldn’t have swapped it off (for scents that are listed at high prices but hardly ever sell near those levels). Even if all things were equal, isn’t life too short to worry about whether you might have been able to sell the scent you swapped off for $20 or $30 more than what you really wanted? I told those guys to go ahead and sell their scents on ebay and then use the money to buy the ones they wanted from me (at 70% of the listed ebay prices); I haven’t heard back from either of them! Does the old saying, “put your money where your mouth is” not apply here?

UPDATE: In his latest post on his FromPyrgos blog (titled, “The Consequences Of Thinking that You Are Inconsequential”), the author states:

And there you have it – free advertising for Azzaro’s discontinued, and now re-released gem. I would like to meet the man who can tell me with a straight face that these words were not the direct motivators for Azzaro to dig up this formula, dust it off, reformulate it, repackage it, and re-release it as Acteur. He’ll have a hard time of it…

This statement was preceded by a few quotations taken from positive reviews of this scent. As I said before, this is the same person who told me (not that long ago) how few people read my blog, which generally has been very positive towards scents such as Acteur, but putting that aside, he is also the same person who likes to demand strong evidence from others if they make similar claims. And as some of you may have already recognized, he expects those who disagree to “prove a negative,” unless you are one of those who actually made the decision to reformulate Acteur and release at least one batch of it. If people like me wield such power, I’m not going to complain, and in this case it helped me acquire a vintage bottle at a very low price, because few know the difference between bottle designs and there was an overall significant price drop, apparently. However, I’m also not going to buy any of the reformulations if I can avoid it.

Am I the great and powerful BigslyOz (part 1) ?

If you go over to the blog, http://frompyrgos.blogspot.com, you’ll see a new post with the following statement in the first paragraph:

This just in: YSL, via L’Oréal, has officially discontinued Kouros… I’m already having difficulty finding reasonably-priced bottles on Amazon (the 3.3 ounce is suddenly $100). It is a sad, sad day.

This is fictional, and apparently the author thinks he has very good future-predicting skills. The reality that I have seen is that Kouros has been difficult to obtain at reasonable prices (well under $50 for 100 ml) for quite a while now on ebay. Would the world end if 100 ml did sell for $100? I’ve got an extra 100 ml bottle that I would like to sell or swap because I know that one bottle will last for a very long time. Sure, if you spray yourself 10+ times with Kouros each time you wear it you may want a backup bottle, but if you do that you are probably not a “base notes person.” If that’s the case, you may want to reconsider your values; are ten minutes of top notes worth that much to you? On most threads about Kouros, you’ll see that many say that one spray is enough or that you should spray in front of you once and then walk through the mist. If you really want Kouros and are one of these people, you likely already have enough to last the rest of your life !

The author makes other statements I find quite odd, such as: “Eventually one must purchase the new stuff…” and, “They aren’t giving new formulas the proper time of day, because they usually don’t own any, and choose to own only the old stuff. There’s nothing wrong with that, except that it doesn’t justify telling people that the new stuff is crap,” and, ” If we begin spreading rumors about deteriorations in formulas, without being able to factually prove that these new formulas are diminutions of their predecessors, then these formulas will become endangered. People will not buy them, and manufacturers will execute the nightmare [meaning discontinuation] described above.”

First of all, no I am not going to purchase “the new stuff.” I’ve got more of “the old stuff” than I’ll ever need, and that seems to be true for many if not most of the people who share my opinion. If I find a new formulation to be pleasant and I already own a bottle there’s a good chance I’ll wear it sometimes, but I’m certainly not going to wear something I don’t like for a reason that may not be true and is irrelevant to me in any case. Moreover, dollar store scents aren’t bad, and usually just don’t last very long, so I could just buy a few of those rather than buying reformulations, because in some cases there doesn’t seem to be much difference. Blaming people because they buy what they like and stop buying when the product seems to have been changed does not make sense to me on any level, but if some people want what might essentially be a dollar store version of the scent they used to enjoy in the same bottle (and at higher prices), they are free to do as they think best, just as I am.

Secondly, I first owned the reformulations and began to notice differences from some of the vintage samples I obtained in swaps, usually from Basenotes members. One example is Red for Men by Giorgio of Beverly Hills. I thought my sample was from the reformulated version and bought a bottle, only to be very disappointed. In other cases I decided I wanted backup bottles (such as with Oscar Pour Lui) and looked for ones on ebay that had a different design, were not common, and looked old, hoping I would get a vintage version, and I’ve been quite successful finding vintage formulations this way. I kept noticing major differences, and then began to swap off as much of my many reformulated bottles as I could. I still have quite a few, unfortunately, but they are up for swap to those who don’t think the differences are meaningful !

Third, nobody is spreading rumors. We are providing our opinions about what we think we are smelling. That is all we can do. If someone wants to do some actual testing, I am more than willing to supply them with samples, but I’m not going to spend thousands of dollars on equipment and try to teach myself how to use it in order to satisfy one blogger’s notions that don’t make sense to me. And lastly, the author is making assumptions about industry decisions being dictated by internet feedback of particular kinds. Do bloggers or posts on sites like Basenotes.net or Fragrantica.com have the kind of influence this author believes they do? Where is the evidence to suggest that is the case? This is the same person who claimed that my blog had hardly any readers not long ago in a snide comment I did not approve.

Can this author furnish any evidence for a blog that has a great deal of influence and urges readers to buy only vintage (of course that person or person would have to explain the differences!), and do the comments to these blog entries suggest this is occurring? I do see some scents being bid up to fairly high prices on ebay but I have not seen much correlation to the Basenotes.net favorites, in general. For example, Gucci Pour Homme (1976) has been selling for quite bit lately, despite hardly any discussion about this one anywhere that I’ve seen. There was a Basenotes thread on it but that was after I noticed ebay prices rise sharply and there weren’t any responses like “I’ll buy it at high prices if I must” that I can recall. In part 2 (which I am hoping to finish within the next few days), I’ll mention wine critic Robert M. Parker, Jr., and talk more about my observations on the fragrance market.

UPDATE: The author of frompyrgos.blogspot.com wanted to leave a comment which included a link to an ebay auction, which was supposed to show that I was “wrong” about the price trends on Kouros. The auction was for several 50 ml bottles at $37 each. How was I wrong? That is $74 per 100 ml! Even so, it is possible that someone gets hold of a box of several Kouros bottles and wants to sell them quickly. I saw this recently with Habanita testers, and this is not related to an overall trend. Moreover, as may be the case here, a stock photo is used of the vintage bottle even though the buyers are getting the newest formulation. In the case of Kouros, general consensus seems to be to at least get a bottle with chrome trim on the “shoulders” and base if you want to experience vintage or something not too far from it.