Difference between Basenotes and Fragrantica?

i guess it depends on whether you trust marketing departments or online communities more. In any case, "actual" notes don't necessarily exist. A note is whatever people smell and there's a lot of interpretation involved.

Hi Hammy, could you give an example of a fragrance where you've seen a huge difference in notes?

I do some work on the directory on Basenotes, and my guess is there is less of a discrepancy between Basenotes and Fragrantica than it used to be, at least on new fragrances, since we get the info from the same press releases. Once a fragrance is launched you will see the same notes being mentioned on all the blogs, usually with the phrases taken directly from the official press release. Fragrantica is always quick to include new releases into their directory, if I can't get a good read on the notes I will wait a bit to see if more info on the scent will appear from another source before I use the form to add it. I don't see the point in being the first site to include a new launch if the info is very sparse.

Another reason the pyramids look different is that the structure of notes is less pliable on Fragrantica with their use of set pictograms; you can't specify a note as "green tea" as they only have a pictogram for "tea". (They make up for the schematic structure by having a more descriptive text, I know! so unclench all Fragrantica members)

For me there are two major differences. One is the ease of use with fragranitca, while BN has a better men's frag forum.

I like that on Fragrantica people can vote for the notes they notice, also there is a little more information about the scent and who made it, plus better pictures. All that said, the reviews are better on BN, as is the forum.

I agree with the latter statement, although I feel completely opposite as for fragrance notes. It's the same issue with parfumo, the votes make up (mostly) a totally irrelevant picture. As for reviews (which is what I study) it is only or used to be older members' reviews on makeupalley that could rival the quality of BN. The obviously now gone Perfumeoflife forum had a lot of valuable information, too, because it had some very knowledgeable people onboard.

I spend most of my time on Fragrantica, but indeed I noticed some of the notes in certain perfumes are missing.

However, in general, the notes are rather accurate. I also like the fact that users can vote which notes are most intense to their noses and thus build a second olfactory pyramid, sorted by the strength of the notes - that's a VERY useful feature, many times better and more objective than reviews.

I like our feedback system! It's easy to use.
But I like that they don't go offline....

Just like Basenotes layout better.

I use both sites daily and have since Sept 2009.

On BN I prefer that our collection can be listed in words and sorted several ways without moving around pictographs.
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On FG I prefer that you can make notes on a fragrance page

On BN I appreciate that the mods can lock a thread but don't delete the whole thing- or an individual's posts in a thread. Also that people can't remove other people's reviews by a thumbs up/ thumbs down method. That drives me insane on FG.

When the notes for a scent are disparate between the two sites, I always use the perfumeintelligence site as the tie-breaker.

I like the forum the best on basenotes and the reviews section on fragrantica.

Basenotes - lots of intelligent discussions and long debates and elaborations and matching of wits.

Fragrantica - a friendly crowd, very outspoken, but cozy.

Basenotes - frequent maintenance overhauls and slowness of system.

Fragrantica - very visual with possibility to insert pictures of bottles menu into text

Basenotes - the great new feature of "Activity Stream" plus showing of the "Activity Stream" inside of Profile.

Fragrantica - a brand new section for Individual Topics where a member has one chance of starting one individual topic line thread.

Both sites are great - love being and galavanting on both. I hope that my posts are valuable and that I don't annoy anyone.

I like the layout of the forum on BN - it is much more pleasant and organized looking. In addition, I don't think Fragrantica allows the selling or decanting of fragrances.

The reviews on Basenotes often seem like they were written by elitists, as opposed to the ones on Fragrantica which to my eyes appear as they were written by more casual folks.

However, BN goes down for me many times a day for a few minutes each time. A bit annoying.

Both serve their purposes.

Generally my thoughts are:
Basenotes is for the hardcore intellectuals who take this seriously and Fragrantica is for the hobbyist who enjoys fragrance.

Not a knock on either. I prefer basenotes reviews and discussion but also enjoy the fragrantica reviews.

basenotes.net

All I have to say is Basenotes is way better than Fragrantica especially in terms of discussions/reviews/fora. It is simple and straightforward, nothing fancy, which I prefer. The only advantage of Fragrantica is on the technical aspect (stable system, more graphical features).

Here, the ratio of positive to negative is readily available on the front of perfume page; each review is also color-coded to easily separate the distinction. The content of reviews are more well-thought, IMO.

Basenotes is also totally-free, with the option to be a supporter. Although Fragrantica is also free, I dislike how the system forces a visitor to register after regular visits.

Like what others have implied, both sites have strengths and weaknesses; but despite its glaring flaws, I'll take Basenotes every day of the week, twice on Sundays.

This.

Regarding "the reviews are better on BN, as is the forum".....I tend to both agree, and disagree somewhat. The forum here is much, much better, I agree....that much isn't even close! But I find that the reviews are about the same, with each place having their pros and cons. Basenotes offers perhaps the more experienced enthusiasts who take it much more seriously with their note breakdown and their detailed description of a scent as it transitions from one phase to the next, etc., while Fragrantica reviews consist of the guy who enjoys fragrances and likes to describe what he thought it smelled like, the type of projection and longevity he experienced, how many and what kind of personal comments or compliments he received, and what type occasions and seasons it is appropriate for, etc.

I will add that one thing I really like about the reviews at Fragrantica is that members can "thumb up or thumb down" THE REVIEW!!! Let's be honest.....at both places, you get some really, really stupid reviews (i.e. - the useless four word "smells like cat vomit" type 'review')....but at least at Fragrantica you can thumb down those stupid reviews. And after enough thumbs down, the "review" (and I'm using that term loosely) disappears.

That said, I think that both places compliment one another and work seamlessly together. You get different opinions from different members of each community....and I think that both sites work well together in helping supply enough information to help consumers make informed decisions....which is what this is (or should be) all about.

I love the discussions on this site. When looking up reviews while shopping, I tend to use Fragrantica. I don't post much to either simply because I'm a total newbie, and most of my questions have been asked already. Basically, I love both sites

I like Basenotes for reading the forum (long time lurker), but I totally disregard the reviews on the individual fragrance pages here. Too many of them sound like pretentious wannabe novelists and either want to praise a fragrance beyond belief or rip it beyond what it really deserves. Just hard to take a lot of them seriously. I find fragrantica much better for getting a general opinion on a fragrance. I also like the notes voting system since it gives a better idea of what the fragrance smells like rather than listing the notes and not knowing which ones are most prominent.

Good points!

Fragrantica's design is so extremely cluttered and "aesthetically challenged" for lack of a better term. My eye can't make heads or tails of it -- from the color to the layout to the fonts and image placement, and extreme ads. It looks like a spam site and I'm always surprised at the quality of content in the frag directory. It just looks amateur.

Whereas Basenotes looks and feels professional, other than the outages.

I never gave Fragrantica much of a chance. Just can't get past that amateurish design.

Some pluses for Fragrantica: Scent pyramids (though often inaccurate), pictoral collection shelves (sometimes a pain for sorting). Cool old ladies who have been wearing perfumes all their lives in the dedicated way that Ladies of That Time wore perfume.

Fragrantica reviews seem to be more about a very personal approach to scent, sometimes veering to the annoyingly memoiristic end. The reviews on Basenotes tend to be more Turin-esque, blunt, objective, or, in my favorite few cases, satirically hyper-literate and cunningly metaphorical (to the chagrin of ginofellino, but dandyism, decadence, and literary hyperbole are a huge part of the allure of scent for me).

I noticed a much larger female presence at Fragrantica, as well as a more vocal group of gay men who like to wear female fragrances, especially vintages and powerhouses. Such groups are the people I adore and prefer to talk shop with, but Fragrantica's boards are too unorganized for me to make the most of the comfortable demographic. I think of Fragrantica as the place for lovers of wearing fragrance and Basenotes as lovers of sampling them.

Due to Basenotes being a low-graphics site that acts up a lot and has a piss-poor search feature, I find these limitations work favorably to bring about a more text-based experience, with most fine Basenoters being pleasantly concise (I can't be concise, sorry) and generous with advice.

I find a ton of great discussion goes on in the Male Frag board here but I am not really into a straight male approach to fragrance (I know it shouldn't matter, but there is a big gap in sensibility there... ).

I really like the Female Fragrances board here. Much less hyper-niche but still into discussing the best of niche, more vintage and stylish approach, the regular posters seem really knowledgeable and friendly. A passion for obscure, individual, unexpected scents stands out.

I was a Fragrantica member for about a month before resettling here in the last week (I've only been into perfumes at all for about 1.5 months now).

I like Fragrantica's directory, its up to date and people friendly. There no elitist waitlist to publish your say- which has its pro's and cons, but the pro's outweigh. While many 'reviews' are people having conversations with each other or utter crap- I do like the fact you get a good cross section of input, from the aficionado to the perfumista to the everyday person to the Beiber-obsessed. The community is a bit young for me personally, but I like the balance of male and female voices. Its a fun, bright place to visit, but doesn't feel like 'home' to me.

Basenotes is where the meat is at, the community is BN's crown jewel. A bit more mature in climate, the contents of discussion are meatier, they move more, and are overall not repetitive. There are small pockets of snobbery, but there are also balancing voices. I do notice the more male dominant presence, which I don't have a problem with, but it is noticeable. The current state of reviews and the directory is abysmal and there really isn't any excuse for it.
Many of the reviews waffle on like its being judged by a panel of experts and just come off as pretentious. It's just not worth visiting at all, for me.

But again, the BN community is the apex, nowhere else comes close. I feel somewhat more at home in this community when it comes to relevance of topics and peers.

Both are great resources. I find that I turn to Basenotes for reviews and for the forum. Fragrantica has a great feature where readers can suggest that the fragrance being reviewed smells like or reminds them of another fragrance, and then links to the reviews of that other fragrance. This "smells like" feature is great because it allows you to quickly imagine the general category and impression of a fragrance in a way that adds a new dimension and it also suggests other fragrances you might want to check out if you already know you like the fragrance you are currently reading about. Also, my impression is that Fragrantica is a bit more diligent about including the name of the nose behind a fragrance which can be helpful information.

My experience EXACTLY. When I first got into fragrances about 15 months ago, I found out about both BN and Fragrantica pretty quickly, but simply could not bear the visual anarchy of Fragrantica so couldn't give it much of a chance. And it's not just an aversion to amateurish design: the clutter was headache-inducing and not at all intuitive. If you're going to make a site so visual, then it should be visually intuitive, and Fragrantica is not. Someone I met on ebay mentioned I could see his wardrobe on Fragrantica, and I was shocked that it consisted of pictures of fragrance bottles, rather than, say, a list of the fragrances. You could hover over a bottle to learn the name of each fragrance, but this was frustrating and time consuming, and I found the whole idea rather gimmicky. It also struck me as a kind of pretense to expertise: that being able to recognize a bottle is an important skill for fragrance appreciation. Maybe this last view was an overreaction of mine, but the approach was distracting from the fragrances themselves.

For the same reason, I find Fragrantica's note pyramids, which consist of photos of the materials from which the note comes (ie, a photo of a peach for a peach note) frustrating to use: if you don't recognize the item in the photo (let's say it's a kind of tree or flower, but you don't know which tree or flower) you have to hover over the photo to have the thing identified which is time consuming and again gimmicky. You can't just scan the note pyramid for the notes; you have to try to interpret the photos. I don't have the time or patience for that, especially since I can just google the fragrance and find the notes some other way much more easily.

I much prefer Basenotes for its neat format, its incredible content, it's dedicated members who share some beautiful reviews and witty commentary, and of course the marketplace.

In a word, I would say Fragrantica is most visual-oriented, while Basenotes is more verbal-oriented. I would also say Basenotes is, for this design reason and for its content, a bit more "literary"... I know some think that's a pretentious or elitist take on the question, but it gives me so much pleasure to read a well-crafted turn of phrase or an imaginative scent description, AND to be able to find these gems in a visually-serene website (because I wouldn't be able to find them otherwise). So, I love Basenotes.

LOL- When I have had the opportunity to read posts from FGers (and I mention this as "opportunity" because often those threads are routinely "dissapeared"by admin- Hay presto! The thread never happened) frequent comments are that that BN is so "hard to use" or they were "bored to tears" due to lack of pix and graphics. LOL

A day or so ago, a new feature was added to Fragrantica. I am comparing this with the Blogs that members have here on BN. To write eloquently about an experience.

At Fragrantica there is the new section: Individual Member Topics

Thus, each member has one (only) opportunity to launch a private topic (excluding religion or politics). These are non-perfume topics of General Interest, something that was formerly discussed on a "Say Anything" thread. Except the "Say Anything" thread took its twists and turns, and did not give really each member enough exposure of what they were passionate about.

This idea took off right from the start. As each member owns her topic, the atmosphere is congenial, like having a party with well-behaved guests, discussing the started topic.

Like a Blog would be - with the guests making comments. Except a professional Blog would change the topic daily, and then again the comments would follow.

The Individual Member Topic has the original title with which it is launched, and yet, it can develop into all directions from there, and the guests keep gathering there.

The remainder of the different forums still exist and each member makes comments there, additionally, as before.

Yup.

I listed a huge number of decants for sale there and was told that I should only list a few. They do allow decant swaps.

Yes, there are now Individual Members Topics on Fragrantica.

The personal notebook is one of the reasons I use Fragrantica as well. Sometimes you just forget why you liked, disliked a fragrance or want to record your first impressions. I also use the votes on seasons as a general guide.

Fragrantica feels like a food court. Lively venue but questionable content.
Basenotes is like an artisanal deli. Quiet, but reeks of quality.

Exactly.

..................the fact that you can openly ask such a question on here in the first place - speaks volumes about the difference between the two places.
And more to the point -people can have a civilized discussion about the question, (without it all descending into bickering, pulling/censorship of threads and threats towards members to 'behave' or else).

This is the difference.

My opinion.

CPL- yes, I know you are not making it up. And it all happened in a few days.
Yes, that one member is surely related to or sleeping with the admins. And again, if you miss the drama when it happens -it will just disappear at the admins whim, no matter how many cogent posts it has.

I like the notebook feature too on FG.
I hate that you cannot list you wardrobe any other way than by dragging bottle images around.
Also dislike the discussions because people just post pictures. Words, People, Words!

Both are great. Basenotes has better forums imo. Fragrantica is much more easily navigated and I also concur that the voting system is excellent.

I like both.

I think Fragrantica has a much better review/rating system for fragrances and the ability to tag fragrance links into the forums is very helpful. Basenotes, however, has a much better forum IMO.

Two differences:

1. Basenotes is more niche friendly, Fragrantica is more designer friendly.
2. Basenotes is mostly men, Fragrantica is mostly women.

Peace has now been restored to Fragrantica, and not for the time being, but permanently. Members have their own personal topic. This sub-section has meanwhile grown to 30 topics.

I have talked about that before and in a neutral tone. I suggest to follow this neutral example, instead of airing out all sorts of "dirty laundry" from one Forum to another Forum. Many people are on both, are enjoying both, and I strongly believe that details and gossip should not be encouraged if we want to enjoy membership in both places.

Every time when one member is disgusted with one place, then she goes over and complains about that place in the other place ??

Grow up. Please.

Same when Basenotes, as it happens time and again, breaks down for maintenance. Then, certain members go over to Fragrantica and bad-mouth Basenotes.

PEACE, please.

Agreed!

I love the info Fragrantica includes in reviews, such as seasons and the difference between the notes a scent is supposed to have and the jumble of notes people smell. The graphs are also easier at a glance. And the section of "people who like this also like" scents is interesting too, though it usually ends up being the same popular scents. Still, it's better to have that info than not have it. Also, basenotes requires an extra click to read more than just five or six people's opinions. Fragrantica lists them all right on the main review page.

I go to Fragrantica for reviews. They're much better. But I prefer the forums here on basenotes.

Back OT:
-I love this forum and community more, fits my interests and tastes better
-but Fragrantica has a better fragrance directory, better search engine, no server problems and the swap section is loads livelier.

I didn't know anything about the crazyperfumelady spat, and can't comment.
I do prefer BN because of the greater variety of participants, topics and opinions. IMO, there's a higher level of discussion here, with many experienced perfumistas/istos, people with science backgrounds, arts backgrounds, perfume makers, collectors, inter alia. And those with greater knowledge are kind towards relative newbies like me.
On the other hand, Fragrantica is often very soothing (above spat excepted). Like joining in a girlie discussion - gay males welcome - at the hairdressers.
At BN, the inclusion of many straight men does make a difference, though I've no idea how to define it. But it's there. And it's good.

Making notes sounds great, I hope Basenotes can steal that idea

I will agree with the post that said along the lines of Fragrantica is for hobbyists, Basenotes is for collectors.

Fragrantica has been helpful thus far in helping me identify fragrances and giving suggestions for health/beauty products.

However if I am stumped on an obscure bottle or fragrance, I think I am able to come here and the community would be very helpful in that respect.

The reviews on Fragrantica can be annoying at times; if anything, the fragrance listings have comments, not reviews. However, there are still many reviews that are well-written once you weed out the others.

I think both places are relatively civil with exception to occasional...disagreements...but I've seen much worse happen on other corners of the internet, so it's not really a huge deal to me.

Posting on the Internet is like moving around in a fish bowl. There is no hiding. Occasional tempests occur. That is what we have moderators for.

BTW, men are posting more often on Basenotes because the discussions are less emotional and more to the point.

Fragrantica is less exacting and very relaxing.

Basenotes= some of the best people on the web.

I have to say the thing which does annoy me about Fragrantica. If a fragrance is discontinued they don't seem to have it in the dictionary. Oh and the pictures in your wardrobe, out of habit I do put up what I am wearing. I swear its damn hard work trying to pick the bottle from the pictures sometimes. I have to trail up and down looking for the right one, I wish they would put all the houses grouped together in photos.

- this. I used to not like that BN didn't have a drop down picture menu/ more pictures..now, I am soooo glad BN doesn't have that feature. I'd just would rather not see a post with 20 pictures of bottles. Not trying to be rude or anything, just personal taste there.

I'll second that.
I'm sure it isn't always a picnic on here either (I'm not that naive lol) - but there does seem to be a friendlier (less toxic) vibe on here so far.

(I've already had so many welcoming and supportive pm's.as well) so - Thanks.

Okay, now I've fought my 'little' corner and stated the truth..... let that be an end to it. (no doubt they will be bitchiing and discussing me over there for the next couple of days - oh well, let them get on with it - I don't care anymore. I've said what I wanted to say and I'm happy)

p.s. Sorry to original poster for hijacking the thread :embarrassed:.

Much too much information !!!

Now then, now then.......

Time out, I think........

There are fine members on both sites, and there is also bad forum behavior on both sites.

Personally I dislike reading the airing of other forum's dirty laundry, and I dislike the practice of following people from one site to another to continue interpersonal disputes.

People who saw what happened already have their opinions, and people who didn't see it, don't need to know, or take sides.

Peace, please!

I don't know, when I read 'peace' I thought of Forrest Gump, which led me to this clip.

Well, crazyperfumelady123 and Ursula, I'm reporting both of you. Happy now?

Its all sorted and finished now. Everybody's happy (especially me)

Free perfume! If only! Everybody's dream. A bit like those cash machines that accidentally give out too much money!