Hey folks, I am doing a doubleheader tonight! This one is going to be quite different than my normal articles. I was watching that U Smells Good guy's video and was inspired to do this. I also watched a video last week from Brock at the Modest Man talking about sponsorships that put this idea in my head. How honest are fragrance reviewers? Are most of them paid off by companies to promote products? Well, I am going to delve into this topic and give my opinion on it. Let's get into it!
1. Promoting Products
I think there is a huge misconception as to how this process works. Most people seem to believe that fragrance reviewers are contacted and are offered an amount of money to say that the product that the company wants to promote them is good. However, in my experience, this is not the case. Keep in mind that I am not a big named reviewer. I would be classified as "irrelevant" by U Smells Good's standards. I am okay with that, but this is still how the process has worked for me.
Most of my "sponsorships" have been from me contacting smaller companies and offering to get review their products to help get their name out there. I use the word "sponsorship" loosely there. There was no money involved and none of them told me a single thing to say about their product. They just told me to review it. The deal that has been made for these sponsorships is that they send me a little bit of their product and I review it for them. They get their name out there for a low cost and I get free content for my blog. It benefits both of us to make such deals. Which I will go over in greater detail shortly.
However, I am aware of some companies who pay people to promote their product, such as Scentbird. Ashton at Gents Scents covered this. Brock at The Modest Man also elaborated on the difference between product reviews and paid reviews. Paid reviews typically follow the same format. They typically look like a commercial telling you why this brand is the best brand and why you should buy it. They follow a similar algorithm and have the same talking points, just worded differently. You will notice this with all of the reviewers who are sponsored by Scentbird. The biggest demographic to sponsor Scentbird aren't fragrance reviewers though, they are mostly men's style channels.
The companies that have sponsored me are Alexandria Fragrances, Gere Parfums, My Fragrance Samples, Whats My Scent, Oil Perfumery, and Babylon Fragrances. As I stated before, none of these companies have told me to say anything about their products. They simply sent me stuff to get a review out there of their products. No money was involved in any of this. Only products.
2. The Price of Reviewing
As many of you know, I have no income right now, since I take care of my mother. It is not a paid job, so I rely on sponsorships to give me content for my blog. I should start working again here soon, at least I hope to. Other reviewers have much larger collections than I do. You can't really expect us to go out and buy every single fragrance and be able to maintain diverse content. Most fragrances are expensive.
On top of that, reviewing fragrances takes time. It takes effort. It takes passion. I spend 4-5 hours per day on my blog, usually 7 days per week. that's around 3-35 hours per week, which is almost a full-time job. You can't expect us to put in that much work every week and pay for every single fragrance we review. It's just not a sustainable practice to be able to do over years and years of time. So, doing such things is silly.
So, if you are jealous of reviewers getting free products then maybe you should try out reviewing yourself. There is a reason most reviewers get burnt out. It's a lot more work than most people think it is. It's expensive, time-consuming, and it takes a lot of scouring the web for new products and companies to separate yourself from every other reviewer out there. It's not a game where you get handed everything and it's easy.
3. How to Tell the Difference
How do we know which reviewers are honest? Well, I think most of them are. Just because someone likes most fragrances doesn't mean they are paid to do so. Some people just try to look at the positive side and the art of the fragrance itself. Just because you think it's generic doesn't mean everyone will. You have to keep in mind that these are just opinions. They are also directed towards a wide audience of people who enjoy fragrances, not just niche lovers who want something unique.
As I said earlier, if it looks like they are not passionate or they are reading off a script made by a company, then most likely it's a load of garbage. However, I don't think I have ever seen a fragrance reviewer do this, only men's style reviewers. Men's style is a much larger market than fragrances and has much more competition.
4. Why Sponsorships are Good for the Community
Sponsorships help us discover new fragrances that we might have otherwise passed off on. They help people learn about the fragrance and the company. Plus, they are mutually beneficial to the reviewer and the company. They help us all discover new fragrances. The fragrance world is very vast and expansive and there are plethoras of different fragrances on the market. Being able to review these smaller companies and exposing them to new demographics helps all of us learn more. I mean, that is what we are all about...learning about fragrances? Right?
5. The Bias
Some will make the argument that sending reviewers fragrances creates bias because the reviewer wants to get more fragrances from that company. I cannot say that is true for me, but for some, it might be slightly true. However, keep in mind that these companies are sending fragrances that they believe are very good so that they will get positive reviews. Most companies will send more products to you even if you give it a negative review. I know Big Beard Business negatively reviewed one Alexandria fragrance, but Hany still sent him some more to review. I have heard of Parfums Vintage getting a negative review as well, but Damien still sent more to that reviewer. These reviews help these companies improve their products based on reviewer feedback as well.
So, there might be a slight bias to these companies, but I don't think it's enough to sway their general opinion if a fragrance is good or not. I think most of the reviewers give their actual thoughts on the fragrances and they won't say something is good when they believe it's not. Remember that most of these reviewers take their reputation seriously.
Conclusion
All in all, I believe that an overwhelming majority of fragrance reviews are honest. They are not paid to promote products. Although, I am sure they get offers to do them. Most of them are like me. That is their channel or blog and they want it to only be their opinions. To not state their opinions means that the content is not entirely theirs. We can always pick out things that we don't believe are correct, but how many of us pick out the positive things?
Fragrances are subjective to everyone. I try my best not to review fragrances that I don't like, as I believe many other reviewers do as well. I don't want to encourage negative vibes, I want to encourage companionship and family within the fragrance community. At the end of the day, we can make up all of these conspiracies, but unless we find substantial evidence of their validity then I think it is best to err on the side of caution and give the benefit of the doubt. We need to start working together, instead of against each other. We can make 5 steps forward, but we can also make 15 backward. Which way would you rather go?
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Brock's video on sponsorships
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