Would you wear Creed if......

[Big Punisher]

There's not much of a snob factor for me personally. (No one where I live even wears cologne) I'd own alot more of them I know.

[Redneck Perfumisto]

Stanford did a fascinating study on price perception and pleasure. Subjects were given two wines and told their prices, one much more expensive than the other. Not only were the more expensive wines ranked higher but MRI scans showed increased neural activity in a pleasure center of the brain; people didn't award more marks to the expensive wine because they assumed a correlation between price and quality but because they genuinely enjoyed them more. The punchline, obviously, is that they were the same wines.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html.

So even if the perfume doesn't smell any better than a cheaper version, we would experience more genuine pleasure from the price alone. You could attribute it to the (in this case mistaken) perception of higher quality but the pleasure would still be there. It explains a great deal about niche and designer products.

Very interesting! I agree - pleasure is augmented not only by the untrue, but even by the irrelevant, as in the case of my wife enjoying many things better simply because the floors are clean.

(And although my fellow scientists probably did not really set out to prove it, I think this is a grand demonstration of both the effectiveness of lies, and the willingness of scientists to engage in immoral behavior "for the sake of science". )

[lightgreen22]

When things are cheap I tend to go overboard in "collecting them" by this I mean buying thing I just think are "meh"

(my way to large nail polish collection is a living testament to this)

So I personally would probably just stick to my favorite and not just buy for "collecting"
sake

[The_Cologneist]

I agree with hose commenting on the feel from the more expensive things. Simply mind over matter. There are always exceptions to the rules, beautiful fragrances made exclusively and sold at far higher prices, but how much is too much? I disagree with Rednecks view on things. I think as being more the connoisseur, we know where we can find what we love at lower prices, unlike the typical average Joe who goes to the mall and blows 80 bucks on something you can get at TJ Maxx for 20. And, with me, at least now, with a collection of 60+ and growing and growing, I would be completely broke if i were purchasing 100-250 dollar fragrances each time.

[Diamondflame]

If I like a fragrance, I don't like it more because it is expensive nor would I like it less if it's cheaper. I just like it & would wear it. If it is 95% cheaper, I'd get a full bottle. But at the regular price, a decant will do just as nicely. It's just cologne.

But Zizanioides highlighted an interesting finding (thank you). It is one of the things that drive the luxury goods market. Probably the same reason why the women 'ooh' and 'aah' over a pair of Jimmy Choo's ankle-breakers...

[Granola]

The only one I'd buy is BDP. The rest are crap to my nose

[Ekove]

++++

[Ekove]

95% cheaper is a little exaggerated. Of course anybody would buy them if they cost that little. But assuming they cost about 50%, I would still say maybe.

Before I tried creed, I was given the impression that while creeds are not necessarily unique, they were the top in their respective categories by how well they were done and how strong they are. But when I tried them I found them to be quite average and I'm yet to be impressed by one of them (I still have high hopes for Erolfa, but can't find a sample)

It seems to me it's really a price and reputation thing. Creed's name and price make it easier for people to have something special and unique on, or give the impression of that. By no means I'm trying to say all creed fans don't genuinely find them superior, but a very good chunk of them. A classic discussion of creed vs cheaper brands is Cool Water and GIT, while I like neither in the first place to get into that one, most people would agree that it's really hard to tell the difference, and no matter how creed fans slice it, I really doubt anybody who thinks GIT is 10% better than Cool Water would pay 10 times the price just for a hardly noticeable improvement. It's definitely the "feeling" people pay for.

In general, as a perfume house, I wouldn't regularly buy from creed even if they were cheaper, since as I said, they're quite averaged if I'd compare them to Chanel, Guerlain, Thierry Muglar or even YSL who in my opinion make quality perfumes regularly, at an average price, except for Chanel maybe.

I gotta give creed one very big + though in the fact they don't release pointless limited variations of their top sellers every season (as far as I know). Also, I do myself understand the whole creed thing. I buy Narcisso Rodriguez perfumes myself because they're slightly price and not all that common even though there are things in my wishlist which are cheaper and as good if not better, only because NR are not all that common where I live, and not anybody is willing to pay that little extra $ for a house that's not very famous yet.

[Pour_Monsieur]

I would never say that Creed was crap , maybe a little overrated but never crap . I have a nice group of samples which I enjoy but still not 100% convinved that any are fbw really but maybe that will change with time

[Addict]

Somewhat indirectly related to the discussion, a Sephora opened recently in my neck of the woods... so there's a good place to sample some almost-niche + good designer stuff...

Yesterday I re-sniffed for the first time in years Chanel's Pour Monsieur.

My goodness, what an insult to perfume lovers. I understand that many Chanel formulas have been modified/cheapened/weakened but even so...

Three minutes of pleasant, acceptable (not illustrious) citrusy/elegant top notes followed by one hour of the most banal quasi-"gourmand" notes imaginable followed by... nothing.

In my departed youth, nobody knew of Creed and Chanel was an epitome of class, luxury, and guaranteed quality.

No, Creed as it is is not expensive imho. For my money, buying things which are both weak and (much more important) ordinary in quality is what is "expensive".

[Kerosene]

If I like a fragrance, I don't like it more because it is expensive nor would I like it less if it's cheaper. I just like it & would wear it. If it is 95% cheaper, I'd get a full bottle. But at the regular price, a decant will do just as nicely. It's just cologne.

Well said.

[mtgprox05]

I don't want to speak for anybody, but I believe he was referring to their vehement anti-union policies (see The High Cost of Low Price). That's one of the reasons I don't shop there, in addition to their business model, which puts mom and pop shops out of business and leaves smaller cities and towns with a streamlined (to put it politely) selection of goods. That's not really on topic for this forum, but the documentary I mentioned is worth a gander if you're interested.

To the OP's question....there's a $22/4oz Demeter that is among my favourites, so yeah, I would. That said, I probably wouldn't try this $15 cologne in the first place until somebody on this forum raved about it, peeking my curiosity.

I'm glad they are anti-union. Nothing good has ever come from a union in the last 50 years. All it does is artificially raise the price of labor, effectively distorting each job's market value, and creating more unemployment.

[LiveJazz]

Appreciation. The word has meaning. I used to only appreciate wine to the point of $6, then maybe $10, and recently up to $20. But I don't drink much, or often, so "casual" is pretty much what kind of a wine drinker I am. I don't truly appreciate the finest wines, and it would be folly for me to pay for something I'm not capable of appreciating. I don't appreciate sporty cars, or even really good vehicles. I appreciate durable trucks, and also cheap, rugged ones. I'm not about to buy something there that I can't really appreciate.

I am NOT a casual cologne user. And that has upped my spending limits, growing right along with my appreciation.

Appreciation has to be personal. I agree - I would NOT spend an extra hundred for a cologne that I don't love down to the point of every nuance (unless it was for splitting, sale or olfactory analysis). But with Creed's lineup, there are easily several fragrances that fall into that region. Ditto Hermès and Guerlain.

Wish I loved Cool Water better than GIT - but I don't.

Whew, that was a good one. I wish I had written that!



Also, I'd just like to point out that we already have perfumes available that are just as good, on almost every level, as Creed, for about 10% of Creed retail prices. These fragrances are from Caron, a house with very little snob appeal. Even without that luxury aura, it's very popular here for quality alone. I suspect that if Creed were available for vastly less money, it would be viewed in a very similar way as Caron.

[Redneck Perfumisto]

These fragrances are from Caron, a house with very little snob appeal. Even without that luxury aura, it's very popular here for quality alone. I suspect that if Creed were available for vastly less money, it would be viewed in a very similar way as Caron.

Thanks! And I think that's right - a Creed fallen out of popularity and onto hard times would probably resemble Caron. A bunch of mysteriously good frags available at curiously good prices, although a few of them would be reformulated to the point of horror.

The best part about Caron is that their masculines have weathered the storm nicely, and are relatively undamaged by modernization. Yatagan still rocks very close to the vintage formulations, and Third Man is actually more day-wearable than Guerlain's Derby, which it resembles. Pour un Homme is next on my list. I only wish Caron's masculine lineup was more extensive.

A thin lineup is, also, what would likely happen to Creed gone unpopular. Something would have to give as the prices fell, and it would probably be the depth of the lineup and some formulations.

I think Rochas and Lubin might be viewed as similar to Caron in some ways. Rochas tends to have excellent prices and reasonable presence at discounters. Lubin comes across like Rochas, but (unfortunately) prices seem to have stayed high. I think both houses have some excellent frags and non-snooty images. Still, for the money, Caron is outrageously good. Third Man is pretty damn close to timeless, and extremely wearable.

In spite of the prices, I'm quite glad that Creed is doing well. It's pretty hard to innovate otherwise. Caron isn't exactly busting down the doors with new entries and limited editions.

[Sunsetspawn]

Stanford did a fascinating study on price perception and pleasure. Subjects were given two wines and told their prices, one much more expensive than the other. Not only were the more expensive wines ranked higher but MRI scans showed increased neural activity in a pleasure center of the brain; people didn't award more marks to the expensive wine because they assumed a correlation between price and quality but because they genuinely enjoyed them more. The punchline, obviously, is that they were the same wines.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13580_3-9849949-39.html.

So even if the perfume doesn't smell any better than a cheaper version, we would experience more genuine pleasure from the price alone. You could attribute it to the (in this case mistaken) perception of higher quality but the pleasure would still be there. It explains a great deal about niche and designer products.

I'll tell you what though. I really don't want to like Creed. Their whole "ministry of truth" thing annoys me to no end. I'd much prefer to like the stuff of the other niche (and way overpriced) houses like MPG, Malle, Lutens, L'Artisan, Montale, Amouage, but the fact remains that Creed makes a damn fine fragrance. I sit on my positive feelings for Creeds for a long while before I write that review because I'm just looking for a reason to NOT like it. And I doubly hate the whole perfumers-get-no-credit crap.

So yeah, I really like a lot of the Creeds and I REALLY don't want to. Explain THAT.

...and Carvin Homme rules!

[zztopp]

Hell yeah .. $25 for a full bottle of world class fragrances such as Selection Verte, GIT, Fleurs de Bulgarie, Citrus Bigarade, Neroli Sauvage, Royal Scottish Lavender, Imperial, SMW, ViW, Bois du Portugal, Vintage Tabarome etc. and each one of them one of the best or near the top in their respective fragrance genres. Its a star studded line-up and at such a low cost, if you don't like even a single one these then you are probably just being an overly anti-Creed perfume hater..

[blas]

No because everyone else would wear them. I like being unique and being exclusive and having a high price helps with that.

indeed!

[Wit_Siamese]

No, because it would be more popular and they would use cheaper ingredients.

People buy niche because they want to feel prestige, furthermore they use higher quality ingredients and more exclusive --it is harder to run into someone who wear the same niche you wear.

But if they can keep the same quality at that price, I might buy all creed fragrances there because I like the scents.

Creed is a niche, but it is not that unique, there are many designer fragrance that smell close to Creed fragrance, but Creed gives you higher quality ingredients and more natural, many designer fragrance use synthetic ingredients.

[Quiptos]

I would for sure, I like a few that I just can't part with the cash for. The few I have are very nice and I would expand by quite a bit if it were half off or more.

[Flaconneur]

For me, there are some Creed fragrances that are unique and appeal to my fragrance tastes. This uniqueness could constitute higher and somewhat unrealistic price structures solely based on high quality materials and availability or those materials. Does this currently hold true for Creed based on the last few releases, who knows. I would be interested in a GIT release aimed at the $29.95 price point just to see with what Creed would come up with. Somehow I think it might push Erwin outside his comfort zone of Royal this and Royal that.

[Cannon]

At $20, no. I must say that the Creed house, its history, prestige, exclusivity, reputation, and price are all part of the appeal to me. I can't say Id give it a second look if it were cheap enough to hang out in Wal-Mart.

[MysteryBuff40]

No because everyone else would wear them. I like being unique and being exclusive and having a high price helps with that.

An honest answer.

It would be interesting if we selected fragrances based only on smell - without knowing the brand, name of the scent, or hearing any reviews. I wonder how many of the fragrances we currently have in our wardrobes would be the same.

[moltening]

Very civilized and thoughtful responses from a "What if Creed was $20" thread!

[Chasing the Dragon]

Dumb question. Of course I would wear them if they were cheaper. I already do now, so why wouldn't I if they were less expensive?

[The_Cologneist]

Dumb question. Of course I would wear them if they were cheaper. I already do now, so why wouldn't I if they were less expensive?

Because if they were cheaper, your average Joe's and all their friends would know exactly what say Aventus is. It would be more commonly worn, as say Curve, or Cool Water. Hence the original post.

I did start this thread some time ago, when I had tested an array of Creed's and found them to be just average in most categories, the things I look for in a fragrance. So I pondered.. why is Creed the house of god's in the frag community? Is it the exclusiveness? Or something else.. Again, hence the OP

[mesaboogie]

I'd buy the sh*t out of some Creed if it was $20 a pop. I'd use GIT as a bathroom air freshener and Millesime Imperial as a door stop. I'd spray Aventus like it was Febreeze.

[PuddleMonkey]

I'm stocking up on Aventus like it is $20

[dilney]

Cologneist: I would still love and enjoy my Creeds if they were $20. However, as has been mentioned, if they became so common that every other person would be wearing them, then my answer would probably be NO. I wouldn't enjoy wearing something that everyone is wearing. Isn't that the argument around here against aquatic/blue/sport fragrances anyway?

Actually, in my wardrobe I DO have $20 (and less) fragrances side by side with my Creeds and I still enjoy them...

[tiberije]

I would be happy to buy Creeds for $20.

[QWERTYOP]

Absolutely! If Creed was 95% cheaper, i'd buy 10 bottles of Aventus and do away with the rest of my collection!