In March it was time again for Esxence, the annual artistic perfume event in Milan. It was the second time we went there, primarily to meet the brands we work with, but of course also to see what is happening in the world of perfumery and get new ideas.
This March, Belgian magazines Knack Weekend, Le Vif Weekend, FEELING and GAEL once again handed out the Belgian Beauty Awards. Besides make-up and personal care, there was also a category called Niche Perfume. But are the three nominated perfumes really 'niche'? Time for an analysis ...
X pour homme, Y pour femme: you can easily replace the X and Y with countless perfume brands that explicitly state on the bottle whether you are holding a perfume for women or for men. Other brands do it more subtly and choose a neutral name, but do have a category for women and a category for men on their website. Similarly, when you walk into a classic perfumery, you usually find a women's department and a men's department. At a time when gender identity has long ceased to be reducible to this binary division, this is remarkable. So who and what exactly determines whether a perfume is suitable for women or men?
In june 2022, we visited Esxence, the annual high mass of niche perfumery. These are our impressions.
Niche perfumes emerged in the eighties. How did that came about? What existed before? And how will it evolve? A short overview.