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Greetings, ladies and gentlemen! I hope everyone's new year is going well so far. Mine has been quite busy with planning lots of new content for reviewing fragrances and just life in general. I am very excited about this coming year!
Today, this is something of a hodgepodge article. It's about my random thoughts on a few things in the fragrance community and fragrances in general. Some of this stuff will be reiterated from previous articles. Some of it will be new stuff.
Now, these are just my opinions. Everyone has them. We all have a lot of different opinions. I want to be clear here: Just because I don't agree with something that someone is doing, it doesn't indicate that I harbor ill will or hate that person. Heck, I disagree with stuff I do sometimes too and I don't hate myself. These are simply opinions based on my observances over the past year.
Now, I know some of this stuff can be seen as controversial, but it's still my opinion. You have yours and I have mine. That is the marvelous thing about opinions, it means that neither one of us is inherently correct. Keep these things in mind as you read this.
I hope you enjoy this one! Let's get into it!
The Wonderful People of the FragComm
Let's start off with some positivity! The fragrance community has many wonderful people in it. People who are willing to talk about more than just fragrances. People who send strangers free samples and spend cash to do it. People who lift others up when they are down.
I know that sometimes it seems like it's becoming a cesspool of trolling and scamming, but those are minuscule compared to the many great people in it. Just think about it...there are thousands of people in most of the groups(besides my poor little group, lol) and even on the largest threads there are usually only 50 people commenting. That is a very small sample size. If you want to find out how many people read the groups, then host a giveaway. They will come out faster than a cat jumping on a mouse.
Trolling
Okay, these people have been around the internet since it began. They get a rise out of people responding to their ludicrous sentiments. I mean it's 2020 and people are still falling prey to them. I do sometimes myself.
I will never understand why trolling is fun for people, but it's quite immature. It's a new year and it's time to put our big boy pants on and act like well-mannered adults.
An Insulting Scent of the Day
I see this too often. Someone posts Office for Men and someone says, "Why would you purchase that?". I don't know, bro. They probably wanted to. That is why most people purchase stuff, isn't it? I don't go into Best Buy and buy a movie because I had no desire to see it. I wanted to check it out.
If they love a fragrance that you don't, then there is no need to question their tastes. They could be new, or possibly they just like stuff you don't. If they are happy with the product for what they paid, then that is all that matters.
Elitism
I have seen a bit of this recently...Well, by recently, I mean almost every day. Someone calls someone a noob, peasant, or says something along the lines of their nose sucks. I mean, we are all different. having a more refined nose doesn't make you a more valuable human being. Everyone is good at something. Some people are blessed with a better sense of smell and a gift to articulate it. Some aren't.
Just because you spend hundreds(or thousands) of dollars on fragrances doesn't make you superior. In fact, it probably makes you look dumb when you consider how much a lot of those higher-end fragrances are marked up over the cost of production. A lot of you are just paying for a brand name and think it's quality, when they are using mostly aroma chemicals, like with Parfums de Marly.
You talk about all of these naturals ingredients and a refined sense of smell, then you go to McDonald's and eat poor quality food. Having a "refined" sense of smell is arbitrary and lacks any sort of merit outside of reviewing and expressing your hobby. I collect tea and can tell you the difference between Japanese and Chinese Sencha, but I am not going to trash on people who can't. It's just immature and lacks any sort of adult manners and is usually used as a way to compensate for low self-esteem.
That being said, saying you don't like someone's fragrance is okay. If that person gets offended when you say it's not your style, then that is their issue and not yours. If you always think you are right on everything, then you are probably wrong.
The bottom line is: It's time to grow up and stop acting like we are 12-year-olds playing Call of Duty. We can't scream noob at everyone who we think is inferior. No one is inferior. We just have different tastes.
Fairness
Okay, this is one that has been circling around quite a bit in recent days. Part of it is stemming from Aaron Hughes and his releases and doubt behind his knowledge. Personally, Aaron isn't my style. I respect him, but his fragrance style isn't in line with my own. That is okay though, I am sure he's a great perfumer.
Now, the fairness thing comes in when people are advocating for him because of online "bullying" and "death threats". I am not doubting Aaron here, but rather some of the people crying wolf over the fact that his fragrances were trashed before they were even launched. Where were you when Jeremy and Steven were attacked before they released their fragrances? If you spearhead a campaign to defend Aaron and brush the others off your shoulders because you aren't fans of the reviewers who launched them, then why treat Aaron differently.
Unfair is unfair, regardless of who the person is. You can't just say, "that guy has the right to a fair trial and the other doesn't because we don't like him personally". That is not how this stuff works. You have to judge everyone fairly and objectively.
Sure, after Steven and Jeremy released their fragrances you can judge them how you see fit, but only if you smelled them. Don't go off on this tangent about you heard how they smell and dozens of people said this. You are being a sheep and not forming your own opinion. I haven't said anything about Navitus or Office/Date because I haven't smelled them.
Death threats are illegal. However, "bullying" is a funny word. I don't know the whole context of what happened, but you have to have thick skin to be a reviewer. You have to let a lot of that stuff fall like water off a duck's back. If you can't handle critique and ridicule, then you might want to find a different avenue to explore.
The bottom line is: If you judge one person one way and treat another differently, then that is not fair. Take the human aspect out of it and be objective about it.
Compliments
I will be straightforward with you, this compliment culture stuff needs to go away. I have explained ad nauseam why this needs to happen in other articles, so I won't go too in-depth here.
A fragrance won't get you a girlfriend because she likes the way you smell. It can help her attraction if you have other stuff going on too, but it's not a determining factor for any woman I have ever spoken to.
My advice would be to stop worrying about what people think and live life your way. You feel so much freer when you are not bound to people\s opinions of you. It's exhilarating, really. I used to be caught up in that stuff too until I realized the reason women didn't like me was because of my self-esteem. I started slowly loving myself. I accepted my flaws and embraced my strengths and life has been amazing since then. That's not to say there isn't still a struggle sometimes, but my quality of life is much better now.
The One-Night Stand Style
This one sort of goes off the last point. Men, especially reviewers, need to stop buying into this trash. It's disrespectful to women to say that she will want you because of a fragrance. That is why you are seeking fragrances to compensate for your lack of manners towards women. They aren't buying into your junk, so you think fragrances will help. They won't. Learn some manners. That will take you to places you never knew were possible with women.
Reviewers who play into this type of style are not looking out for your best interests. They just want your clicks to get their ad revenue. They don't respect and care about their viewers. This is a business to them.
Let me be clear, I am not talking about most complimented videos. I am talking about videos that degrade women into people who will sleep with you or want you because of a fragrance. The ones that say you can get a girlfriend with a fragrance. They are just lies, folks. I know this will garner me some ill-content from some reviewers(or should I say influencers?), but I don't care. I doubt they even read my blog anyway, lol.
The Fast Pace
One of my pet peeves is when I see a reviewer who just purchased a fragrance review it the same day. I test every fragrance for a minimum of 5 days before I review it. You can't learn about a fragrance and know much about it in less than 12 hours. I am sorry, but that is a first impression and not a review.
I know how difficult it can be to test for that long with so many fragrances. I have 250 or so full bottles(I lost count) and 100 or so samples. I have only reviewed half of those. It's really difficult and I fall behind sometimes, but I still hold myself to a certain standard and to provide a high-quality and in-depth review of a fragrance. I think every reviewer should strive for this.
Wear What you Want
Someone else's fragrance choice doesn't impact your life in any way. It's fine to make a suggestion on not over spraying or a better quality one, but to outright tell someone they cannot wear something is wrong.
If they want to wear a fragrance marketed towards women, let them. You aren't smelling them in their daily life. It's not a crime and people need to stop treating it as such.
A Bright Light
We have many great reviewers in the fragrance community. Ones who stay honest and don't care about the backlash. Some reviewers are new and just learning. Hopefully, some of the things I have said helps. I am not a professional or big-name reviewer, but I am honest about what I think.
My best advice for new reviewers would be to stop caring about likes, comments, and subs. Free yourself from the chains of burden and make content that is up to your standard, then all of that stuff will come along with it. There is nothing worse than having a bunch of viewers there for free stuff or ones that don't want to be there. Focus on the quality of your viewers and not sheer numbers.
The Whole Picture
I know I said a few negative things, but overall the fragrance community is an amazing place full of amazing people and I love being here. Some of my darkest days were uplifted by people in the community. We all love fragrances. Sometimes we get a bit too passionate, myself included. We all make mistakes. It's a wonderful place where we all can share our love of stuff that smells good.
The positives far outweigh the few negative things. However, when you get this many people together, there will always be some contrasting opinion and I am no different.
This is an outlet for me to express myself and I am thankful for the people who support me, even if they don't agree with me.
Conclusion
I hope everyone enjoyed this article. I hope I didn't ruffle too many feathers. Again, I will state that I have no ill-will towards any reviewer or person. I just want us all to be better and more respectful of each other. I know it can be quite difficult and I am guilty of being disrespectful myself. We all need to learn together to make this a better and more inviting place for everyone. If only a few of us make changes, then it will improve the experience for everyone.
I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday! Until next time, keep smelling amazing and being amazing. Be blessed, everyone.
Also, I am waiting for my logo to be done and a few other things to fall into place. I am aiming for a Youtube launch around the start of February.
My Youtube channel(If you want to get a head start for when I start posting videos)(Hopefully that will be in two weeks or less)
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