C R E E D "Royal English Leather" (original release 1781)

Even if some of their fragrances are nice, I don't believe their shit. I have the internet.

Where is the claim that Erolfa was gifted on the Titanic found?

Erolfa came out in 1992 and is named after Oliver's two kids and mother of the children.

"ER stands for Erwin CREED, only son of Olivier CREED. Erwin is the seventh generation and future head of the House of CREED.
OL stands for Olivia, Mr. CREED’s only daughter and a talented visual artist who works for the company.
FA stand for Fabienne, Erwin’s and Olivia’s mother."

Agree and have never seen anything put out by Creed making a claim that it was gifted on the Titanic.

I read the thread. I think if anything, that was a store owner/SA laying it on thick to sell someone a pricey bottle of Erolfa.

Creed may facilitate many "legends" regarding their scents, but they're not so dumb as to tell anyone a scent that wasn't created until the 1990s was on the Titanic.

Hhmm...I voted "Yes" Yet only to actually read this topic later on...though..to be perfectly honest...It could just be for sheer comedic antics...Maybe a marketing ploy...though hey...they're doing well right

We'll Never Know!

- Balava

Who f'ing cares?

I buy fragrances based on the way they smell. I don't care what claims Creed or any other company makes, or how they market themselves.

That's the third option.

I would like to think that the formulation is really from 1781, but I have my doubts

Do not despair yet, merry.waters! The bottles are being guarded well by the mermaids until courageous divers will finally recover them from the bottom of the sea. There is just another little detail everybody should know:: they won’t find exactly Erolfa because the perfume then available for free to passengers in the luxury class was called “Fleurs de Hongrie”. *

It was 80 years later that Olivier relaunched the old Fleurs de Hongrie to honor the passengers that once inhabited the de luxe cabins of the Titanic, equipped with bottles of what must have been "the most reputed luxury fragrance of the time...". At this occasion, Olivier renamed the perfume Fleurs de Hongrie to what it is known as now: Erolfa ! Let’s just be patient another little while until the bottles will all have been found. 1012 ? ... that' wouldn't be far away now ! Maybe the world can then compare the original Fleurs de Hongrie and Erolfa side by side - et voilÃ*, your evidence!

The fairytale as presented to Creed customers: <<For the first class passengers on board the Titanic, Erolfa was placed in all the Luxury cabins as a welcome gift. On 10th April 1912 the luxury steamer started from the English port of Southampton on its maiden voyage to New York. It was at the time the largest ship ever built and its unparalleled luxury was as extravagant as its passenger list: John Jacob Astor, possibly the richest man in the world at that time, or the married couple Straus, founders of the department store “Macy's " in New York.
It was the ambition of the experienced captain John Edward Smith, on this maiden voyage to win “The Blue Band” for the fastest Atlantic crossing. Therefore the captain did not let the relatively high speed of 22 knots (41 kilometres per hour) throttle even after receiving a pack ice warning. How the story ended in 1912, we all know… even to this day there are dozens of the flacons resting on the sea-bed south-east of Newfoundland.

80 years later this Titanic fragrance has been launched again and has received a new name: Erolfa. It was baptized by Olivier Creed in honour of his family: his son Erwin, his daughter Olivia and his wife Fabienne. There is a soul partnership between the fragrance Erolfa and the Titanic: One finds ”The Blue Band" as a symbol for aspiring endeavour not only on the blue cap of the Flacons, but also in the precision of this fragrant creation. Chords from kelp and sea- algae kidnap one’s senses to the heart of the Atlantic and give an idea of his infinite width and incalculability.
Millesime for Men. Admirer: Sean Connery >> (end of quote)


I find the story unbelievable for several reasons: Equipping cabins with a masculine EDP in 1912 ? A little unlikely, unless of course there had been a perfume for ladies on that shelf also. Next you may wonder why no feminine has been mentioned. Had Creed supplied two perfumes instead of one only, they would not have kept it a secret. Was a second one perhaps supplied by Houbigant, Caron, or some other house? If there had only been a little bit of truth in that story, the latest film version would have included it. Just imagine the effect of such propaganda. But coming to think of it, the story itself isn't a good story. Fleurs de whatever sounds more feminine than masculine to me. A strange metamorphosis must have taken place. Did Poseidon mess with those bottles in the eighty years that followed the disaster? - If I was a chemist, I wouldn't be guessing much longer but have Erolfa (and Royal English Leather!) unmasked by the gas chromatograph. Both fragrances, I am sure, have components which were not known at the time of their - stated - creation. Someone may have done it before. Maybe that's why a certain perfume critic has more or less ignored the better of those 50 perfumes of ts house. Insiders must be laughing at the unlimited faith of those numerous, religiously trusting customers.
___________________
edit: * =Fleurs de Hongrie: Trying to verify that name, I noticed that FdH is not even mentioned in the document quoted, sorry!. I must have picked it from yet another document. What matters is: according to the legend (if it were true) the perfumes of 1912 and of 1992 are supposed to have been the same. New since 1992 is, according to Creed press, only the name - Tabarome.

Interesting Narcus...now I see the origin of that story

If you believe that, then please PM me immediately because I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you for a very good price.

LOL, googling is usually a lot faster than trying to drag things out of BN's own archive directly. But I could have saved myself a lot of googling yesterday, had I been aware of several Erolfa and other Creed threads from the past. I think the following is worth mentioning, in case someone is interested in more details. It also contains the_good_life's summary of a more general research of published Creed material plus additional information from his blog. I hope you do not object, Tom :





thanks, Hirch Duckfinder

Royal English Leather 1781 to follow

Narcus - the link doesn't work. Try this:
http://perfumedpolitics.blogspot.com...-pasts-of.html

Priceless!


One can wear and enjoy a fragrance without believing the sometimes ludicrous ad copy many use. Creed is probably the worst I've seen in this respect, but it's far from the only.

Creed IS the worst. Please name an example of any other company which comes close... I'd simply like to know!

Worst at what? They make a wide variety of frags. If you're into fragrances, judge their work for what it is. Weird historical stories or not, many good noses in here like and wear many of their frags.

If you really like one of their frags, who cares who else wore it or whether or not there's some weird history about it.

...

That is completely sensible and I think most BNers will agree with you on that. But the general public isn't as knowledgeable or sophisticated when it comes to fragrance lore and Creed's marketing strategy works. I've been in numerous perfume stores when I've heard customers ask after "that cologne JFK/Jackie O wore" and the SA showing them the Creed selection and giving them the PR spiel about which monarch/celebrity wore each one. Perfume is a pretty mystifying product and selecting the signature fragrance of a vaunted historical figure removes a lot of the doubt in the novice's mind that they are making a mistake or buying an inferior product. And it's believable. If you had told me before I became interested in perfume that some company was still selling the same cologne they made for George the Third I probably would have believed it, if only because I had little reason not to.
For those reasons, I place Creed in that special category of disdain alongside carnival games, lotteries, and casinos; barely legitimate enterprises that toe the line of legality and profit from ignorance. Creed does make some good perfumes and people do win the lottery, but that doesn't make their methods and mechanics any less despicable. I'm not for banning any of the mentioned items but I do wish people would stop patronizing them.

All I see is a win for Creed in these recent threads : the 'fans' rollicking in the perfume discussions, the 'haters' mystified and sent digging into their perfume history vaults for one uppance.

There are many other fragrance houses which have a more dubious historical lineage - just to name one, the house of D'Orsay, unlike Creed, has documented evidence that its history is manufactured. Why don't people discuss this house more? Simple...except for a couple of fragrances, many of their offerings just aren't good enough.

Carnival games? LOL. By all means if you don't like them, don't buy them. I'm not here to sell them. I have issues with longevity with some of their scents, and I don't like their newest offerings either.

There's a lot of that kind of BS slung around on many products. SAs will do and say a lot of things to sell a product. It's done with a lot of high end frags. Creed just has the biggest reputation on the block.

No one can truly prove whether or not REL (or a variation thereof) was formulated for King George the Third. No one can prove they didn't formulate REL or something similar for him either.

You can choose to think it's nefarious. I don't.

I admit 'carnival games' is a bit of a stretch =) but there's just something about false advertising that sets me off and that's compounded by Creed's obvious disregard for the truth and customer contempt.

You're right, I can't prove that REL wasn't formulated by Creed for King George but there are a few other Creed claims that I can dispel:
1. Imperial Millesime was created for King Faisal of Saudi Arabia in 1995. Sadly, the king could never smell the final product as he had been assassinated in 1975).
2. Tâbarome 1875 is claimed to have been both a) commissioned by George IV who unfortunately died in 1830 or b) commissioned by Winston Churchill who had just been born the year before
3. Fleurissimo was commissioned by the Prince of Monaco on or for his wedding to Grace Kelly in 1956. In an extremely fashionably late entrance the perfume was not released until 1972.
4.Citrus Bigarrade was created in 1901 to celebrate the love story of Edward the Eighth abdicating his throne to marry Wallis Simpson and for the happy couple, predating the event by 35 years
5.CREED Selection Verte "worn by the greatest name in the field of psychoanalysis" and created in 1971, leading to speculation about which psychoanalyst the Creed family believes is greater than Freud or Jung
6. According to a non-official source http://translate.google.com/translat...ufaktur-creed/ Napoleon's perfumer recorded in 1806 the great conqueror's love of Bois De Portugal. This was unfortunate since the French and British were in the middle of the Great French War, lasting from 1792-1815 and making trade illegal.

A couple of things and then I'm done with Creed PR for the day.

I don't know that some of those stories you're citing have all been put forth by Creed. e.g. I have heard and read often that Churchill had worn Tabarome, but I've never seen Creed say it was created for him.

I think many of these stories build a life of their own and morph in the hand of SAs and word of mouth. As regards some of the scents that get accredited to people who died before the release dates, much of the fragrance work Creed has done through the years is bespoke perfume. If they create a perfume specifically for me in 2010 (at $30K plus a guarantee to purchase 10 liters over the next few years, that won't be happening), and then make it widely available it in 2040 after I've died, is that not a fragrance they created for me.

I can't and won't take on all the stories you mention above. My opinion is they began wide retail distribution in the 1970s, but have been creating bespoke perfumes for many, many years.

Actually, I think Creed's line on a lot of these is that they were private fragrances for many years, released to the public much later. That might explain some of the discrepancies in dates.

In any case -- well yes, of course it's marketing, PR, and advertising. Big deal. Take it all with a grain of salt. Creed's chosen image is history/culture/affluence. Is that any worse than, say, nearly-naked models with trendy hair, fake tans, and gym-manufactured physiques? Anybody whining about how colognes marketed with that kind of imagery are horribly deceptive? Like maybe if you saw the people who made those colonges, and/or wear them, and they don't actually look like that -- well, it's deceptive, a travesty, an evil empire. Don't buy from those companies, because no one associated with those fragrances actually looks like that.

That kind of advertsing is about image making - we are all used to it in our lives. It may be misleading at times (and is usually legally persued if it is) but it is not lies, as it makes no specific claim but tries to make us associate a brand with a set of images. We all know it is an actor getting paid to endorse a product. That is different from very specific historical claims which, if not true, would be specific and deliberate lies.

Fair enough! Thanks for engaging in some enjoyable perfume nerdery with me =) But I'll try to track down the official Creed sources these stories come from just to make sure I'm being fair. And yes, it would still be a fragrance they created for you but the creation date would be 2010. Sources are matched by number to previous post:
1. http://www.creedperfume.com.au/prod17.htm
2. http://www.creedperfume.com.au/prod17.htm *
3. http://www.creedperfume.com.au/prod1.htm
4. http://www.creedboutique.com/creed-u...bigarrade.html
5. http://www.creedboutique.com/creed-u...ion-verte.html

All the dates cited come from Basenotes' directory.



*(This actually claims that Tabarone Millesime, not Tabarome 1875 was made for Winston Churchill even though other sources date it to 2000. I apologize for the mistake.)

Let's get to the bottom of this! I'm emailing the Creed folks to see if they can remedy my confusion and put things to right. I'd hate to be making baseless accusations if there is a simple explanation I've overlooked.

So I followed up on this with a very informative gentleman at Creed who managed to set a few things straight.

1. Millesieme Imperial was not made for King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The AU site is wrong and he's written to correct them.
2. The creation dates listed by Basenotes etc are, as some speculated, the public release date and not the creation date. The creation dates can be only be found by browsing Creed's official releases and only for certain ones.
3. Selection Verte was supposedly created in 1901 which would have been in Freud's lifetime. Unfortunately, the old creed website contradicts this (http://web.archive.org/web/200612071...ts/product/117 ) placing the creation year as 1955 for Cary Grant.
4. There are no claims to the market releases using the original formula even if they are labeled Vintage etc.
Most of the inconsistent stories were not addressed and I've been put in touch with someone else at Creed who I can bother. It was interesting to delve into all of this but not much was really explained other than a)you can't trust secondary sources, even "authorized Creed dealers" b) you can't always trust official Creed sources and c) the documents (advertisements etc) to prove these claims aren't available to you.

An enjoyable thread, which fortunately has little bearing on my perfume buying decisions. I trust my nose so I really couldn't care less if Creed had created fragrances for King Tut himself. But I agree these myths have a way of self-morphing into grandiose fairytales. Unscrupulous SAs intent on commissions might have something to do with it.

Sounds like they are forgetting their own lies. Oops did I just post that?

For the record I like some Creed scents but their marketing is a bunch baloney.

Sounds like a four year old trying to wriggle out of self contradictory lies.
I mean really.....
Any Lawyers in the house? Have these guys been deliberately deceiving people?

Amen brother. It's amazing at the breadth of the polorizing opinions generated when Creed is brought up. What has Creed done to get people to want to slander them so much? What is it about them that creates such strong opinions? Who the HELL CARES what they say about their fragrances? Show me a lawsuit claiming false advertising, and I'll shut up, but until then keep the blatant Creed hatery to yourselves.

This!! If I like the scent (which REL I do), I'll buy it and wear it. Get over it people. It's not THAT important anyway.

Yet another thread decrying Creed's marketing tactics. However, I must say that I admire those among us who can continually muster the will and energy to flog this deceased, nearly petrified, equine entity.

If you like the stuff, wear it. If you don't, find something you do like and wear that. Pretty simple.

Pretty much this. I'm not actually researching this to expose the evil empire of Creed and their role in killing Hamlet's father/causing global warming/assisting the career of Miley Cyrus, I'm just interested in the limits of advertising claims in an industry already supersaturated with puffery and, if their claims proved valid, sharing any evidence with the community at large.
I don't like their approach but I've tried to do due diligence in figuring things out.

Even if you don't believe their historical claims it's a pretty sure bet that a lot of people do, otherwise they'd have abandoned the approach for something more persuasive. The pervasiveness of Creed's quasi-historical claims are so widespread even in the blogosphere and BN-style forums that it leads me to believe that an awful lot of high end consumers buy into these stories. If you like Creed scents for what they are please continue to enjoy them. If, however, you are only buying Selection Verte because Freud wore it and you hope it will solve your narcissism you might want to reconsider.