AVON recently released three new fragrances under the brand-new Perfect Nonsense line (the releases about it on the global website were published just in May), and we have some thoughts.
The line was launched in the Philippines on June 5, at Makati’s Odd Café — drinks inspired by the scents will be available until August in its Makati and Ortigas branches. During the launch, strips of paper sprayed with the scents were handed out to guests, while a display of the elegant bottles was laid out for guests to try. The bottles are squat squares, topped off with clear plastic spheres, looking more expensive than they really are (Avon’s official store on online shopping platform Shopee lists them at P823; a release says P899).
Victor Costa, head of fragrance brands at Avon, was quoted as saying in a release that the line took two years to perfect. “Perfect Nonsense is our most exciting range of scents to date and is set to disrupt the mass fragrance market! No matter your gender, there’s a scent for every fragrance lover — but the collection is especially for those looking for something distinctive. As always, we partnered with world-leading fragrance houses and together we had a very clear intention to be bound by no rules, be imaginative and craft something original and I’m proud to say we’ve achieved just that!”
The line is so named because of the scent combinations in the concoctions that on paper, sound unworkable or plain ridiculous. There’s Peppery Peaches, Choco Tuberose, and Bamboozie Cocktail (bamboo and booze). The same release says, “The contrasting fragrance pairings also reflect the growing rejection of gendered fragrances in favor of unisex scents.”
An article from Beautinow.com (https://tinyurl.com/2tyshar6) cited by Avon said that a market research study from Statista found that “51% of new fragrances launched in 2018 were marketed as ‘unisex,’ as compared to 17% in 2010.” The article uses CK One’s perfume as an example of the first to market itself as unisex — and it just so happens to be one of the most famous fragrances to come out in the 1990s, its influence stretching to the 2000s; ripe for the picking for Gen Z’s Y2K nostalgia.
Avon partnered with top fragrance houses and perfumers for Perfect Nonsense, such as Nisrine Bouazzaoui Grillié, perfumer at Givaudan. Givaudan, headquartered in Switzerland, happens to be one of the largest companies in charge of scent, and interestingly, flavors. According to her page on perfume resource site Fragrantica.com, Ms. Grillié had been part of Parfums Christian Dior, and has worked on various fragrances from Carolina Herrera to H&M.
TRYING THEM OUT
For Peppery Peaches, she mixed together peach, pink peppercorn, and bergamot peel for the top notes; osmanthus, rose petals, and solar white flowers for the middle notes; and benzoin resin, vanilla sugar, and tonka bean for the base notes. BusinessWorld took home all three bottles to test for a week, and for us, Peppery Peaches did not sit well on our skin (and that’s probably our fault). The initial spritz smelled plasticky, and that scent note stuck to us for the rest of the day, reminding us of the scent of just-opened packages from a mid-level department store. Maybe someone wants to smell shiny and new like that; we don’t.
It does, however, make for an excellent room and linen spray. We’ve been spraying it on flowers (the Duchess of Windsor was said to do this too, but with Dior) and our curtains, and our living room smelled sexy and luxurious. The fact that it could scent our living room for a good three hours is also a testament to its great sillage and middling longevity.
The next scent in the line is Bamboozie Cocktail, with notes of bergamot, bamboo sap accord, lemon, tonic blends, white tea, jasmine sambac India absolute, Mate Absolute (probably not derived from nature), and Patchouli Indonesia essence. Now we’re talking. We kept this in the bathroom, to spritz ourselves on our way out of a shower to our dressing room. The clean, refreshing notes of the fragrance prolong the effect of soap and cold, clean water, and we felt and smelled clean for a little longer in the day.
Our favorite in the line was the Choco Tuberose scent. It has notes of Sichuan pepper, ginger, cosmo fruit, golden turmeric, magnolia, tuberose, cocoa shells, vetiver, and cypriol. No scent below P1,000 has a right to smell as elegantly as this one did. The rich, luxurious but sometimes overwhelming tuberose and white florals were tempered by the rich, earthy, sweetish cacao, resulting in a scent that’s clean but oddly seductive and sexy (I sniffed my wrist several times within an hour of wearing this).
That’s the problem though, and why we kept sniffing: the scent is fleeting and flits in and out. After about three hours, you’d think the scent was gone, but it comes back after six. To be more sure and consistent, spray it on your clothes (your laundress and perfume enthusiasts will not thank you though).
MICROTRENDS
Perfume has recently entered the game of the competitive microtrend, aligned with the quick attention span of teens and 20-somethings. Late last year, that sphere was obsessed with soapy clean scents; then last quarter, they were abuzz with skin scents (scents that smell like your skin, but better; almost “invisible” except to the wearer). Now it seems we’re swinging back to gourmand scents. The swings of the scent pendulum also reflect a more educated consumer. Joey Dizon, head of beauty innovation for Avon Philippines said in an interview, “We love it, that the consumers are now more educated.”
“We come up with different combinations. It’s not boxed in a specific trend per se. It’s challenging the industry,” she added.
“We have a huge range of fragrances. At any given point, we just highlight one of our fragrances to address a specific trend,” she said.
Avon Perfect Nonsense is now available through Avon Representatives, in-stores at Watsons and SM Beauty, and online via official Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok shops. — Joseph L. Garcia
