Delve into the fantastical, esoteric world of niche perfumeries creating obscure, conceptual scents you'd never find at a Macy's counter. Their exotic names and pretty packaging are all tempting in their own way, but evaluating the actual fragrances is what really matters. Here are the best batch, as determined by a panel of six BuzzFeed sniff testers.
An underground scene exists for everything these days, and the perfume world is no exception. A cult obsessives (many with blogs, obviously) pore over packaging, complexity and "sillage." (Which, I learned, is the trail left behind by a scent — as in, if you're in an elevator and you notice some girl reeks, you'd say her perfume has maximum sillage.) The appeal of niche perfume transcends the scent itself — it's about smelling like no one else, and knowing that you own a product made in a small, hand-crafted batch using real botanicals and essences rather than the phthalates and synthetic chemicals found in mainstream perfumes. So, onto the sniff test!
Behold: The BuzzFeed Perfume Sampling Party
None of us are perfume connoisseurs — I'm probably the only tester in the bunch who could tell you what "sillage" means because I was tasked with writing this post. So we judged each scent with our visceral reactions. Like normal people instead of perfume people. And we agreed surprisingly easily: any exclamation of "pretty!" was a thumbs up. Any crinkling of the nose followed by a "hmmm..." or an outright "ew" was usually a mutually agreed upon thumbs down.
