Your most *complimented NICHE* frag

[Red_Rose]

Apologies if there have been a 101 threads on this. Had a quick look on the search function and nothing really came up.

Anyway, I tend to receive a lot of compliments from the designer frags I own such as YSL Rive Gauche and A*Men but not many from my small collection of "niche" frags (i.e. Tea for Two, Voleur de Roses, Musc Ravageur, Gris Clair).

Save for Creed (which I do not consider to be quintessentially niche) what niche frags draw the most compliments?

[zztopp]

why is Creed not considered niche? isnt it nichier than guerlain, lutens, caron and hermes?

[Octothorpe]

~ Passage D'enfer (good compliments)
~ Nostalgia (comments like "you been working on your car again?&quot

[shadesofbleu]

It's really close between the Serge Lutens that I wear: Ambre Sultan, Chergui, Fumerie Turque, and Cuir Mauresque. I get lots of compliments on all four!

[EnvYuS]

Tea for Two would be mine. It is a signature scent so to speak. I wear it quite often and so people smell it a lot more than the others. That may make it easier but it is still the number one.

EnvYuS

PS ~ I think Creed is a 'niche' fragrance. It happens to be widely popular but not disigner at all.

[Stuffman]

I'd have to respectfully diasagree with your not considering Creed to be niche. Compared to most all other niche brands, Creed sells a lot more, but their sales are nowhere near that of more mainstream brands. Sure, Creeds are easy to find online, but I have to drive well over 150 miles to find them in a store.

That said, if you count Creed, I'd say Acier Aluminum is my most-complemented scent. Women really seem to love this one, and I think I've gotten more complements with this one in the last year than all other fragrances I own combined.

The sample of Muscs Koublai Khan I got garnered a good reaction, but mainly from those who were really close to me at the time (if you know what I mean ). Other people probably thought I was just dirty though.

[Dante]

If we're including Creed as niche then for me it's Millesime Imperial and Silver Mountain Water.

[foetidus]

Millesime Imperial

[MonkeyManMatt]

Silver Mountain Water (3 friends have actually ordered it after being smitten) closely followed by Premier Figuier.
And Creed is definitely niche, what other label could it possibly go under?
MMM

[Johnny_Ludlow]

Lorenzo Villoresi's Musk

[eric]

None I'm afraid. And I've worn most of em. MPG, Lartisan, Bond, LV. In fact, most people I know didn't even like most niche fragrances when I let them smell .Weird isn't it? Doesn't stop me from wearing them ofcourse. Now I think of it, I did get compliments wearin some GIT and Original Vetiver, but not often, but I just as well could have worn Cool Water. I don't think anyone would notice the difference. Not the people I meet in everyday life.

[narcus]

Silver Mountain Water (3 friends have actually ordered it after being smitten) closely followed by Premier Figuier.
And Creed is definitely niche, what other label could it possibly go under?
MMM

I would suggest: Precious Scents, Exclusive Scents, Luxury Brands (or Labels).

Turin recently said something like 'Niche scents are those you never find'. And that is very true! They are often just on a local market, sold by pharmacies in Italy, or only against cash, no shipment, or amateurish shipment upon advance payment. Mostly, credit cards are not accepted, and ordering is not easy, be it only because no English is spoken. Suppliers may not even have samples or web sites. Why bother in spite of these obstacles? Superb stuff for connoisseurs, fragrances for educated noses, frags that do not appeal on first sniff, but will surprise and reward you over time. No compliment getters? Well, people like what they are used to and towards the top of the arts, air gets thinner! That's the center of niche! 80% of Comme de Garcons is niche almost - you find Man2 next to everywhere, but the Incense line?

Lutens and Creed: how can they be niche when they are sold in at least one department store of my city near the counters where I can buy Davidoff and Gilette? Pricewise and measured by their quality, they are way beyond average designer fragrances, so it makes sense to have them in a group of their own, maybe together with those designer colognes, you only find at boutiques, like Dior's Eau Noir, Chanel's Cuir de Russie. Some less popular Guerlains and Carons belong there too. They all have a rare and super standard of quality in common, and they are available!

Also: A shop or website specialising in rare, discontinued fragrances I would call a niche shop without hesitation. Vintage Creed, Patou, or Worth I consider niche! Basenoter David combs old resources in France and then sells that in Berlin where he lives. The old D'Orsay cologne 'eau fringante' I got from him propels me back 100 years, or Lanvins' Men, long discontinued, now niche! I enjoy this rather more than Lanvin 'L'homme' which brought me compliments, and is 'not bad', but more like mass production.

[ajmc]

New Haarlem

[chris2005]

Silver Mountain Water

My explanation of niche is something you don't see often. The only Creed I saw in my area is in a perfume boutique and nobody even knows about it. Heck, when I asked for their prices and when she pulled it out to check, you could see the dust it accumulated. So sure, Creed is probably the most widely available 'niche' out there, but I have yet to know somebody who wears or even knows about them. Despite that though, I really wish Oliver would stop sending his stuff out to Kmart and other cheap stores like it. I doubt he's directly involved with those retailers, he probably just sold them in bulk to some middleman, but that is never a smart idea.

[MikeD]

Most complimented? Mazzolari's 'Lui,' and Poivre Samarcande (part of the Hermessence series) by Hermes.

[zztopp]

My choice would be BdP


So a frag house can be considered niche in one country, and not in another?

Creed is a small, private, family owned company with a small worldwide distribution network. Up until the late 80s, it didnt even have a distributor in America .. and Love in White is the first fragrance to be launched in America first.

[narcus]

My choice would be BdP
So a frag house can be considered niche in one country, and not in another?
Creed is a small, private, family owned company with a small worldwide distribution network. Up until the late 80s, it didnt even have a distributor in America .. and Love in White is the first fragrance to be launched in America first.

I admit that I propagate the narrow interpretation of niche. Niche always relates to your market at a given time. The late 80's in the fragrance and cosmetics market is more than one generation. So many world famous (if small) entities have vanished within the last 25 years, been swallowed by one of the world players, and customers do not even realize it until the precious liquid silently disappears from the shelves! What may have been noticed - the liquid has not always remained the same.

Ownership does not matter, as long as a family outfit has enough capital to serve a huge market, which seems to be the case with Creeds. Hopefully, no bank has a say in their policy yet. All this we do not know. What is obvious: Creed themselves keep spreading nice little stories about the family. This is part of their image, not necessarily the truth. But even families sometimes sell out to Louis Vuitton Corp., or Procter and Gamble! The enormous capital involved, an estimated huge market share (world wide), and their wide product palette really do not speak for 'niche' production.

No doubt they are among the few best, I would say elitist, producers of fragrances in the world! I also like to think it is a company where people really still care more about what they are selling than what they can charge, and they charge a lot!

(and BdP is very close to my heart)

[whitebar]

Silver Mountain Water
CdG Sequoia

[ikkitosennomusha]

GIT and SMW

[SlimPickins]

Hi all,
This has been discussed many times.
A niche company is one which produces products in a limited field - a niche - in this case fragrances. This is opposed to designer firms which produce many branded products in a variety of areas. By this definition even CdG is not a niche company because they produce a wide variety of clothing and other branded products.

I suppose there are lots of definitions, but this is the one that makes the most sense to me.

My most complimented nich fragrances would be SMN's Nostalgia and Chergui.
But I get more compliments on Odeur 53 than both of these, by far.

-Slim

[narcus]

Hi all,
This has been discussed many times.
A niche company is one which produces products in a limited field - a niche - in this case fragrances. This is opposed to designer firms which produce many branded products in a variety of areas. By this definition even CdG is not a niche company because they produce a wide variety of clothing and other branded products.
I suppose there are lots of definitions, but this is the one that makes the most sense to me.
My most complimented nich fragrances would be SMN's Nostalgia and Chergui.
But I get more compliments on Odeur 53 than both of these, by far.
-Slim

Oops! I forgot the designer bit. You are correct, of course. Guerlain works in a limited field and so does Crown, another perfumer (I believe). Why would be one a niche producer and the other not? The above definition gives me no clue for that. Can you give me a hint how to find those previous discussions? My search for 'niche' resulted in nothing but the usual scent posts of the "better" fragrances.
:-/ within Basenotes, the common understanding of 'niche' seems to be mainly fragrance related and rather vague.
p.s.
The new categories, now in use by FiFi, open a more adequate differentiation - although I barely know what 'nouveau niche' actually means. We can also not do without the established, if demodé terms 'artisan/artisanal in perfumery, because that has existed in Europe since the middle ages and survived! http://www.fragrance.org/cgi/fetch_n...?thing=7657300, the slowest page right now, http://www.fragrance.org/FF_past.html http://www.abc.net.au/catapult/indepth/s1468647.htm

[breakbeatbmw]

I'm more of a designer frag guy but I have to second New Haarlem. It's gotten me tons of compliments but I like it so much I'd wear it even if it didn't.

[greyhueofdoubt]

Niche-
a : a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted b : a habitat supplying the factors necessary for the existence of an organism or species c : the ecological role of an organism in a community especially in regard to food consumption d : a specialized market


Designer frags are designed to appeal to the greatest number of people while mainaining their quality. Niche frags are designed to cater only to people who want to smell that special thing that they produce. Carbon fiber bike frames are niche- they appeal to a narrow, well-defined market. Oakley sunglasses are not niche- they appeal to the greatest number of people possible for one product. MKK is niche because it appeals to a very narrow and well-defined market.

So, I'm unsure whether or not creed is niche. I'd like to not classify a frag by the size of the house that made it- MKK would still be niche if Liz Claiborne made it, don't you think?

I think we should consider the frag independently of the house. "What niche does this frag fill?"

That said, people don't compliment my niche frags. That should help prove my point that the frag- not the house- defines its niche status. But I'm new here, and this is just my opinion.


-ben

[misterbowles]

Dior's Bois d'Argent has gotten compliments every time I've worn it. Every time.

[HackerX]

let's start a debate of the day: "Is Geir niche?"

...........go

[aubrgene]

I get a lot of compliments from: Lorenzo Villoresi's Garofano

[DustB]

I don't think the comments I've gotten on Tea for Two have been exactly compliments, but they've been so fun I can't help but take them for greater delight than compliments.

From an older lady passing by me in a shop with narrow aisles: "Something smells like lots of mothballs here!"

From a friend giving me a hug on a winter streetcorner: "Mmmm, your coat smells so good! What kind of weird closet do you keep it in?"

From a friend of mine at a great party: "Chris! Have you been smoking dope?"

[robyogi]

Piper Nigrum
Musc Ravageur
Cuir Mauresque
Tabarome Millesime

Oddly, I don't get compliments on SMW, even though I probably wear it more regularly than the others I mentioned above.

[headcoat]

Definitely Musc Ravageur. It gets to the point where I have to consciously avoid wearing it sometimes because of the endless compliments it gets. I don't like to be overshadowed by my fragrance!

[graffham]

Just got a nice complement from a stranger on the L'instant Extreme edp pour homme I happened to be wearing. I might just buy all the other products to go with it!

[Prince Barry]

I always get compliments when wearing Miel de Bois, Musc Ravageur, Millesime Imperial and Isfarkand.

[Tuner_Watson]

The definition of "niche" one sees most often references the number of "doors" (i.e., retail locations) where the line can be had. So I think "niche" began as a marketing category based on narrowness/exclusivity of distribution. The Internet has blurred the lines on distribution, especially for something like Creed, which I would still very much categorize as niche. It seems silly to base the distinction on whether the house has other lines of business or even a clothing business, if the fragrance line is obviously not conceived as an adjunct to some global fashion marketing plan. So I would count Comme des Garcons as niche.

I think a good paradigm could borrow from the movie business. There, you have big studio releases that open on 3000 screens and aim to push the buttons of a broad audience. You also have small independent films targeting very specific (and sometimes snobbish) audience segments. Especially if you live in a smaller community, it can require a real effort to see some of these films. Of course, big studios are increasingly involved in the production and distirbution of films with an "independent" sensibility.

I don't really think in terms of the categories "niche" and "designer" myself, but I seem to favor fragrances with an "it's not for everyone" quality about them that also require a bit of effort to obtain. I suppose "niche" is as good a shorthand for those fragrances as anything.

I've probably had the most compliments on Jaisalmer.