If you love fragrance like I do, chances are you've found yourself on #perfumetok—a fast-growing corner of TikTok (it currently has 4.5 billion views and counting) full of influencers in the scent space. Once you pass #perfumetok's initiation (making fragrantica.com your homepage, regrettably googling what ambergris is, and having all your tote bags jingle with samples) you'll start to see a specific type of a video consistently pop up on your feed…
It goes something like this: A content creator with a silky-smooth voice, green-screened over an Oxbridge-looking campus, proclaims that if you wear plaid skirts, dark lipstick, and read A Secret History by Donna Tartt, then the "Dark Academia" perfume of your dreams is Replica Whispers in the Library. These creators make finding a new scent seem so easy and prescriptive, but IMO they've got it all wrong. You don't actually need to match your perfume to your ~vibe~. You just have to frickin' like it. So please, before you drop $160 to cosplay as a moody prep school student, consider: Do you actually like wood, vanilla, and pepper notes? Have you actually experienced the scent for yourself?
Perfume, like so many other beauty categories, has officially entered its social media era and has consequently fallen victim to the inescapable clutch of personal branding in the form of the newest "core" or "aesthetic." |
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