When a new perfume is a hit (an event less common than you might imagine) the marketer wants to cash in on this success and commonly does so by creating brand extensions -- accessory fragrance products such as soaps, shampoos, and spa products. Then later, different versions of the original -- "XYZ Blue," "XYZ Summer," "XYZ 2013," and whatever. Each time trying to squeeze more profit out of the sometimes unexpected success.
As the market expands and the product range becomes broader, adjustments must be made to the original formula. The aroma chemistry that works for a fine fragrance may not be suitable for a shampoo or body wash. Chemical conflicts are resolved by reformulating the scent to maintain the odor while eliminating the chemical conflicts.
I've done some "line extensions" with several of my own fragrances and I'm working at going through my whole fragrance lineup, scent by scent. But I haven't gone into soap, or shampoo, or body wash, or massage oil. I've simply begun to create solid perfume samplers from my original fragrances.
Why? Shipping simplicity is one reason. But sampling is a larger reason. Since (some) people are reluctant to buy a perfume they've never smelled from a website they don't know much about, from a person who is equally unknown to them ... I decided to make life simple. Samples that anyone can afford on an impulse buy along with shipping that is cheap and simple. But let's talk a little about formulas -- how closely do the formulas of these solid perfumes match the formulas of their originals?
From alcohol and water
to beeswax and jojoba
My fine fragrances are made from alcohol, (sometimes) water, and fragrance. (I won't get into the "natural" vs "synthetic" argument here as my views on this topic are well known.)
The fragrance oil in most cases (even the men's fragrances!) is 20 percent by volume of the finished fragrance, meaning the fragrance oil has been diluted so that 4 parts out of 5 are alcohol, or alcohol and water.
But to make solid perfume I use beeswax and jojoba (which looks like an oil but really isn't.)
In the solid perfume I'm currently using about 9 percent fragrance compound to 91 percent beeswax and jojoba. Nine percent seems (to me) to be plenty strong, although I'm still experimenting with proportions.
But the fragrance oil being used in the solids is EXACTLY the same fragrance oil being used in the fine fragrances. There has been no change in the formula.
But, in a different medium, what do you get?
Ethyl alcohol is used as a solvent in perfumery due to its lack of a conspicuous odor. Jojoba shares this quality.
But beeswax -- straight from the hive (which is what I've been using) -- carries with it a slight aroma of ... honey!
So when you use "straight from the hive" beeswax to make solid perfume, beeswax as "natural" as beeswax can get, you bring along with it a slight aroma of honey which now blends with your fragrance, changing it slightly, enhancing it perhaps, certainly not spoiling it, but creating something somewhat "different" than the original fine fragrance scent.
Overall...
The solid perfumes I've done come out very close in scent to my fine fragrance originals and so I'm happy to offer them just as they are. Currently I have solids in three scents. Soon there will be more. You can find them at www.PGLightyears.com if you're interested. They are quite affordable.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
What Makes The Business of Beautiful Scents Profitable?
Do you love scent? Do you love perfume? Have you ever considered the economics of perfume? Have you ever asked yourself, "Who pays for all this?" How is it that we can have a world full of beautiful scents?
I think fragranced products have become more importance to use today as many of us live in a world without a lot of exposure to natural scents.
Flower gardens are wonderful but if you live in the north, you'd better have your own greenhouse if you want your own natural flower scents year round.
And anyone living in a city? Trips to the flower shop can get expensive and most urban-surviving house plants aren't fragrant.
So many of us today get our favorite scents from the commercial world -- perfumes and colognes at the mall or elsewhere, aromatherapy oils from gift boutiques and health food stores, scented candles and room sprays, diffusers, whatever, all provided by companies that exist to make money and can only continue to exist if they continue to make money. "Synthetic," "green," "holistic," "earth-friendly" are all dependent on SALES. Profitable sales.
What makes a fragrance profitable?
A fragrance -- from any vendor -- can be profitable only when enough people want it, are willing and able to pay its price, and are motivated enough to go out and buy it, now. (If they love it but wait too long the vendor may go out of business. Small vendors are particularly vulnerable.)
But what are the qualities that make people want a particular scent or scented product? Candle shops with their multitude of scented candles have become a massive presence at the malls. This has probably been a help for artisinal candle and soap makers who cater to customers who want a little more sophistication or green and definitely hand made.
The problem for these artisinal producers is a very thin profit margin. The larger companies can buy on scale, keeping their manufacturing costs down. Then, in selling they can achieve volume, taking a small profit on each sale but making many small sales and thus an acceptable profit.
The artisinal crafter has a requirement of using higher quality raw materials than the mass marketer but can only buy them in small quantities. Thus their production costs are high.
With high production costs you would think that artisinal soap and candles would command relatively high prices. But, for the most part, they do not. On the one hand, they must compete with the big stores and not let their prices become too extravagant. On the other hand, they must compete with their fellow artisinal producers.
Due to the low entry cost for this business, many have jumped in. Who survives? Those, for the most part, with the best marketing sense and business management.
Perfume -- why not?
Perfume as a fragrance presents a different picture than soap and candles. Everybody knows that perfume carries a high markup. You can put together a bottle of perfume for a few dollars, expecting it to sell for $35, $55, or even more. So isn't this a profitable business? What can go wrong?
Anyone who has worked on the sales side of perfume -- including all those independent perfumers marketing their own perfume and some that just jump in to it in the hopes of outsized profit -- know exactly what can go wrong. No sales.
To be in the perfume business you need sales. The large fragrance marketers totally understand this and thus strive for good relationships (and good contracts) with designers and celebrities whose names can sell perfume. When they sign a celebrity to release the celebrity's so-called "signature fragrance," they are banking on the presumption that many fans will buy. It is the same strategy used by French couturiers from about 1910 and on -- you can't afford the dress? No matter. You can afford our perfume. And today perfumes from the celebrities are more affordable than their concert tickets, and more widely available.
But here's the catch. The investment to produce a perfume on a small scale -- while highly affordable -- can still be considerably greater than the investment to produce a soap or candle. And with soap and candles it's almost axiomatic that you produce half a dozen scents, but very few incremental dollars are required to expand into a "line" as opposed to offering candles or soap in a single scent. Not so with perfume.
Each new perfume scent you produce requires a certain minimum production run and while these runs may be small, their cost is not insignificant.
So while just about anyone can produce at least a single perfume, the game begins when you go to sell it.
So you have a market? Do you have followers? Will they buy a perfume from you? Will they buy the particular scent you have hit on?
The most common killer of independent perfume projects is lack of market.
The most common error of independent perfumers and perfume entrepreneurs is to invest ALL of their capital in producing a fragrance BEFORE they have explored and developed a market for it.
It doesn't mater how good the fragrance might be. If nobody knows about it, if nobody has ever smelled it, if nobody is impressed by you and your fragrance, you make no sales.
That's why the successful vendors, be they the big, commercial perfume marketers or the folks that sell their aromatherapy oils through health food stores have, at the beginning, carved out markets for themselves. Markets in which they can make sales.
I think fragranced products have become more importance to use today as many of us live in a world without a lot of exposure to natural scents.
Flower gardens are wonderful but if you live in the north, you'd better have your own greenhouse if you want your own natural flower scents year round.
And anyone living in a city? Trips to the flower shop can get expensive and most urban-surviving house plants aren't fragrant.
So many of us today get our favorite scents from the commercial world -- perfumes and colognes at the mall or elsewhere, aromatherapy oils from gift boutiques and health food stores, scented candles and room sprays, diffusers, whatever, all provided by companies that exist to make money and can only continue to exist if they continue to make money. "Synthetic," "green," "holistic," "earth-friendly" are all dependent on SALES. Profitable sales.
What makes a fragrance profitable?
A fragrance -- from any vendor -- can be profitable only when enough people want it, are willing and able to pay its price, and are motivated enough to go out and buy it, now. (If they love it but wait too long the vendor may go out of business. Small vendors are particularly vulnerable.)
But what are the qualities that make people want a particular scent or scented product? Candle shops with their multitude of scented candles have become a massive presence at the malls. This has probably been a help for artisinal candle and soap makers who cater to customers who want a little more sophistication or green and definitely hand made.
The problem for these artisinal producers is a very thin profit margin. The larger companies can buy on scale, keeping their manufacturing costs down. Then, in selling they can achieve volume, taking a small profit on each sale but making many small sales and thus an acceptable profit.
The artisinal crafter has a requirement of using higher quality raw materials than the mass marketer but can only buy them in small quantities. Thus their production costs are high.
With high production costs you would think that artisinal soap and candles would command relatively high prices. But, for the most part, they do not. On the one hand, they must compete with the big stores and not let their prices become too extravagant. On the other hand, they must compete with their fellow artisinal producers.
Due to the low entry cost for this business, many have jumped in. Who survives? Those, for the most part, with the best marketing sense and business management.
Perfume -- why not?
Perfume as a fragrance presents a different picture than soap and candles. Everybody knows that perfume carries a high markup. You can put together a bottle of perfume for a few dollars, expecting it to sell for $35, $55, or even more. So isn't this a profitable business? What can go wrong?
Anyone who has worked on the sales side of perfume -- including all those independent perfumers marketing their own perfume and some that just jump in to it in the hopes of outsized profit -- know exactly what can go wrong. No sales.
To be in the perfume business you need sales. The large fragrance marketers totally understand this and thus strive for good relationships (and good contracts) with designers and celebrities whose names can sell perfume. When they sign a celebrity to release the celebrity's so-called "signature fragrance," they are banking on the presumption that many fans will buy. It is the same strategy used by French couturiers from about 1910 and on -- you can't afford the dress? No matter. You can afford our perfume. And today perfumes from the celebrities are more affordable than their concert tickets, and more widely available.
But here's the catch. The investment to produce a perfume on a small scale -- while highly affordable -- can still be considerably greater than the investment to produce a soap or candle. And with soap and candles it's almost axiomatic that you produce half a dozen scents, but very few incremental dollars are required to expand into a "line" as opposed to offering candles or soap in a single scent. Not so with perfume.
Each new perfume scent you produce requires a certain minimum production run and while these runs may be small, their cost is not insignificant.
So while just about anyone can produce at least a single perfume, the game begins when you go to sell it.
So you have a market? Do you have followers? Will they buy a perfume from you? Will they buy the particular scent you have hit on?
The most common killer of independent perfume projects is lack of market.
The most common error of independent perfumers and perfume entrepreneurs is to invest ALL of their capital in producing a fragrance BEFORE they have explored and developed a market for it.
It doesn't mater how good the fragrance might be. If nobody knows about it, if nobody has ever smelled it, if nobody is impressed by you and your fragrance, you make no sales.
That's why the successful vendors, be they the big, commercial perfume marketers or the folks that sell their aromatherapy oils through health food stores have, at the beginning, carved out markets for themselves. Markets in which they can make sales.
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