Confidential or niche perfumery
It is often referred to as niche perfumery, but other more rewarding terms are possible: haute parfumerie, exceptional perfumes, luxury perfumes, alternative perfumery, perfumes by authors or even rare perfumes.
Perfume origins
Originally, perfume was sacred. The oldest perfume, Kyphi, is Egyptian. It was mainly used for fumigation of the gods. The etymology testifies to the importance of the celebration of this practice of fumigation, “per fumare” in Latin means through smoke.
The first perfumer alchemist called 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 took up perfume for hygiene and health purposes, with extensive use of baths and massages with scented oils.
In the 11th century, floral scents were brought to Europe from Arabia with the crusades and the transport of spices.
In the Middle Ages, it was recognised that perfume could heal. During this period, medicinal perfumes, called Aqua Mirabilis, were produced in monasteries using a still.
In the 14th century the use of alcohol in perfume became more common. The Queen of Hungary's Water is one of the first alcoholic preparations that emphasised its medicinal properties. At that time, these potions cured miasmas and were drunk.
The art of perfume flourished during the Renaissance period, notably thanks to Catherine de Medici's personal perfumer, René le Florentin. Louis XIV, the most perfumed king in history, preferred to rub his body with perfumed towels rather than take a bath. He had the will to promote the French perfumery; under his reign the glove makers 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.
Eau de Cologne was prescribed by doctors, and Napoleon I was a fan of its fresh and invigorating notes. The Emperor consumed it without moderation, on average one bottle per day. It is said that he drank a few drops before each battle to get energy.
Then the Eau de Cologne was only prescribed for external use. In 1853, Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain created L'Eau Impériale dedicated to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. A custom-made Eau de Cologne with calming properties to treat her frequent migraines, it was orchestrated with an overdose of orange blossoms with calming properties.
Modern perfume
The modern eau de parfum with the addition of some synthetic products in the 1800's gave the perfumes creativity, tenacity, modernity and sillage, the beginning of its commercialisation. From 1774 onwards, the most famous perfume houses 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.
During the 20th century, the fashion houses gradually eclipsed some of the great perfume houses. The fashion of the couturier-parfumeur was born with Paul Poiret and the Parfums de Rosine in the 1910s, followed by the Maisons 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.
Guerlain's Après l'Ondée, l'Heure Bleue, Mitsouko, Shalimar and Caron's Tabac Blond were mostly created between 1900 and 1925. Their democratization and that of perfume in general arrived during the Trente Glorieuses with bigger advertising investment from the 1960s onwards and an increase in household purchasing power with the emergence of the middle class.
Marketing in perfumery
The emergence of advertising and marketing marked the democratization of perfume. Brands wanted to sell to the greatest number of people. For that, a beautiful presentation was necessary with the creation of a beautiful bottle and its packaging, highlighted by a muse. In the 1970s, the big brands still launched a perfume every 10 years. 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 has exploded and sometimes tends to trivialise luxury perfume and high-end perfume.
The customer was less and less attached to the quality and creativity of a fragrance or the emotion it provoked, but more to the brand or the message conveyed by the advertising campaign. Perfume became a fashion accessory, a trendy product.
These perfumes were sold in selective distribution in the large perfume chains and were launched via very expensive marketing campaigns that often featured big names from the cinema or models with unreal beauty. Remember that a perfume must be chosen and adopted with the tip of one's nose and according to one's desires and personality.
Alongside the classic international brands, alternative brands have developed over time to meet this desire for uniqueness.
Several traditional houses prefigured this movement such as Santa Maria Novella (1812), Creed (1760) or Penhaligon's (1870). The 20th century saw the emergence of the Maison Diptyque and L'Artisan Parfumeur with Jean François Laporte (1976). L'Artisan Parfumeur wanted to rebel against the classic and American brands, and especially against all marketing and consumer tests that make it possible to erase the rough edges in order to please the greatest number of people.
A provocation was followed 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 privilege creativity by launching differentiating, creative and assertive niche perfumes, betting on the quality of their creations. All these houses had unique and sober bottles, with names that often evoke associations with perfumes’ raw materials such as Mûre et Musc, Mimosa pour moi by L'Artisan Parfumeur, Ambre Sultan by Serge Lutens, Angélique sous la pluie by Frédérique Malle.
Emergence of niche fragrances
Following the founding houses, many others were created, choosing a differentiating and elitist positioning = literary angle for the Maison Frédéric Malle, transgressive for État Libre d'Orange, minimalist for Le Labo or very sophisticated for Killian. We also see independent perfumers or creative directors: 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 there are two main types of perfumeries, the brands sold in chains and the confidential brands that are more often sold in their own boutiques or in beautiful specialised perfumeries such as Sens Unique, Jovoy, Nose, in department stores such as Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, Bon Marché, Samaritaine, BHV, in concept stores such as Dover Street Market and L'Eclaireur or on the Internet.
In Italy, the traditional perfumeries bet on the confidential perfumery well before other markets.
In the USA, department stores, especially Sephora, quickly realised that they needed to integrate an alternative offer in their shops.
Brand distribution is becoming more and more hybrid
Get off the beaten track, escape from the classics, from the darlings of the present time and finally find your own perfume, the one that won't be the one next door and that will marry your deepest personality.
Could alternative perfumery be the best answer?
A niche perfume is the result of a process and an act comparable to that of an artisan. When developing a rare or luxury fragrance, the brand has a real freedom. It wants to tell a real story, to propose a real emotional journey, a fragrance conceived with heart, an authentic fragrance that will not be born from a marketing brief and that will not worry about whether the fragrance will appeal to the greatest number of people or not.
The fragrances are often presented as unisex fragrances, i.e. they are fragrances for men and women, because it is a perfumery where emotion is at the centre of the discourse. Luxury fragrances are now increasingly coveted by the growing number of perfume enthusiasts who are looking for a unique fragrance, a luxury fragrance that is different and rarely worn.
Being increasingly educated and open to new experiences, customers are looking for a different perfumery. They want to know what goes on behind the scenes of perfumery, follow expert accounts on the internet and social networks in order to benefit from their advice. They want to adopt a niche fragrance with raw materials not often used in mainstream perfumery or with new olfactory effects, bold choices. Niche and rare perfume lovers are looking for uniqueness because they are olfactory educated and prefer the fragrance itself to all other elements of the marketing mix. The customer is looking for rarity and difference.
These specialised perfumeries, where only niche fragrances are available, generally have few references and brands that the owners have chosen because they correspond to their taste. The owners or advisors of these confidential perfumeries are generally experts or enthusiasts, they take the time to advise their customers. The goal for them is to create loyalty by finding them one or more ideal fragrances. Most of them also want to give their customers new experiences in order to educate them: olfactory and gustatory experiences at the same time, scent cups, perfumed fans, Frédéric Malle's sensorial cabins, large perfume filters at Lunx, conferences, perfume creation workshops, etc.
Fragrance consultations are often offered to help the customer find their signature fragrance. The consultants are generally very well trained (the confidential brand invests a lot in the training of the consultants). Training is not organised like in a prestige brand, it is mainly the designers who inform and train their customers themselves.
These rare brands do not advertise much, they rely on the importance of the boutique with communication mainly through press articles and blogs. Their fragrances are not tested by consumer panels but internally or with their partners. Although they are not intended to appeal to the greatest number of people, they must nevertheless be sold.
Why are rare niche perfumes more expensive?
The perfume bottles are often identical from one fragrance to another because the brand does not have enough volume of perfumes sold to afford a bottle for each reference, except for some that are beginning to be known. The quantities of bottles, packaging and perfume concentrates ordered from their respective suppliers are smaller and therefore more expensive.
These brands do not generally skimp on the price of the perfume concentrate, they favour beautiful natural raw materials or beautiful molecules which can also be expensive. The concentration is generally more generous, with an offer of eau de parfum rather than eau de toilette.
In short, they want to offer their customers creativity that is not hampered by heavy profitability requirements. Other players are taking advantage of this new niche to offer expensive positioned fragrances without really offering added value in exchange. Luxury fragrance does not mean ostentatious, the price does not necessarily justify the quality of a product. There is now such a plethora of products on offer that it is difficult to choose, as the best and the worst can be found side by side.
The classic international brands spend sometimes disproportionate amounts of money to succeed in an international launch with colossal investments in terms of communication (muse, important digital media, TV, cinema). Their fragrances are launched with a great deal of consumer testing in order to appeal to the greatest number of people, sometimes to the detriment of the originality, creativity or quality of the fragrance.
Of course, this trend towards more original, creative or rare fragrances did not escape the attention of these major brands who rushed to create another category in their offer: private or exclusive collections, this trend appeared in 2004. Some of these houses have proposed a supreme luxury service with a high-end proposal: customised perfumes and luxury perfumes.
Recently, almost all niche perfume houses have reached a significant size. Frédéric Malle, Atelier Cologne, Dyptique, Penhaligon's, Joe Malone, Creed, L'Artisan Parfumeur, Annick Goutal have been bought by large groups. They can now be found in selective distribution chains such as Sephora.
The figures speak for themselves, the classic perfumery is slightly in decline, contrary to the confidential perfumery which is gaining market shares every year, the question is to know if the trend will be maintained.
Confidential perfumes Sylvaine Delacourte
Sylvaine Delacourte, creator of Guerlain perfumes for 15 years, has launched her own brand of niche perfumes. You can discover her Musk, Vanilla and Orange Blossom Collection thanks to the Discovery Boxes.