Sorry for the confusion! I didn't confuse them, and mentioned they were non overlapping groups. I just wasn't sure which you were talking about
😀 Your original post brought both up, and I had mentioned DIY's that made from GCMS interpreted formulas to muddy the water a bit, so wasn't clear what we were talking about at the moment.
😀
Right, I thought we were generally talking about clone houses as Lataffa, Al Haramin, Rasari, Bujarami, swiss arabian etc. And, at least as far as I know, they're not buying bulk dupe china pre-blended concentrate, since they're at the scale they can do it themselves, and all of their clones of a popular fragrance are all quite distinct from each other. But I suppose there's probably some garbo tier or 'indy' western clone houses that do just buy bulk concentrate. I have wondered about that. If it were the case, presumably then you could find multiple western clone houses selling indistinguishable stuff, same supplier and all. I had always assumed that those bulk smellalike barrels went to like... gas station fragrance clones, and some etsy/small name retailers, and tourist shops in Greece, and small ME frag stores, but I could well be wrong. Different market again, same but different.
In my last BulkAroma order, I ordered 2 of these concentrates, for my own curiousity/knowledge, like 10g each, $2-3 each. Mixed itup, tossed it in an atomizer, left it for a month, and... meh? As one would expect. Then into the trash. I've been curious about Frater's production of similar, as his costs are .. high, and he does work from GCMS, so i'd expect them to be far closer, since his materials are higher end, and at that cost, he could sell ones without sloppy substitions, but I think my general appetite for knowledge in this realm is dwindled as far as spending money goes
😉 As i mentioned, it'd be fascinating to GCMS one and compare vs the real GCMS to see the types of swaps/concessions they're making to hit their pricepoint, but thats about where my interest ends.
As far as I'm aware, Creed uses IFF/Givudan/Tasago, etc perfumers, and not their own employees.
The Ghost Perfumer is a book written about specifically this case, though I've not read it. But generally 90% of these big houses don't have perfumers in house, and particularly where captives are used, the perfume itself was made not by them, but by one of these big mega corps that make most scents these days, creed adn others just consign it and slap their name on it. Kinda interesting stuff! Niche brands like Zoologist kinda turn this on its head, by just contracting indy perfumers to formulate, and then buy rights/license to produce under their name without having any perfumers on staff. Also totally above board.
And, even small indy guys that craft their own formulas, once they get to a certain size, invaraibly use compounding houses to mix the final batch even if they supply the formula, but I have less of a problem with that, but still was a TIL. It also throws a lot of people as often these compounding houses sell custom blends as well as inhouse 'clones', and im sure that some start with a clone base and modify from there, but compounding houses are used by Creed and el Cheapo Gas Station Knockoff, and Midsized Le Niche small brand alike.
Of course, there's also a fascinating rumor that Montblanc released Explorer as a copy of Aventus to get back at Creed for copying Montblanc Individuel. So its copycat and shady business from the top to bottom. Allegedly
😀.
If this is in reference to my pointing out that there's a giant subculture of clone buyers that have
ridiculous sized collections, buying aggressively.. I never claimed they were connoisseurs nor 'established' in any way, only that they had shopping addictions, and there are 250,000 of them congregating on reddit weekly, and they were ridiculous 🙃. If you were referring to something else, then carry on.
I do find it amusing that while we have the technology to do it perfectly(ish, naturals throw a wrench in that pretty hard, captives too), there does not exist a clone house I'm aware of that does event attempt 1:1, its *always* done with brutal cuts and concessions to hit a high profit margin and low cost, the '$60 version' is stripped to its core, vaguely recognizable, and inherently flawed. Sometimes the concessions end up preferrable to some people (noobs love them superambers and more vanillin), but never indistinguishable. World would be simpler if they did put out 1:1 recreations i would think. They could still hit a far cheaper pricepoint, savings on R&D and marketing, retail locations, etc.. Still problematic, but arguably simpler than what we have today which is not that, and probably more able to have an honest discussion over IP protections for scents as a real problem.
I think we're getting closer to the actual distinction here, but I would push back on a few of the assumptions in your response.
First, on the "clone collectors" point: I think you're conflating 'buying dupes' with 'being a dupe collector'.
If someone has a collection of 50, 100 or 200 original fragrances and buys three or four dupes because they're curious about how that particular interpretation compares, I don't think it is reasonable to classify that person as part of a "clone-buying subculture." They're simply exploring another segment of the market.
And that distinction matters because a large part of the clone industry's marketing is precisely about getting people to 'try an alternative', not necessarily convincing them to replace their entire collection with clones. Someone might own Aventus, buy an Aventus-inspired fragrance to see how close it is, and then decide they prefer the original. Or they might discover that they actually like the alternative. Neither person has become a "dupe collector."
I'm sure there are people who do collect dozens or hundreds of clones, I'm not disputing that at all. But the existence of that group doesn't tell us what the broader consumer base for dupes looks like, any more than someone who buys a few designer fragrances from a discounter becomes a 'discount fragrance collector.'
On the companies you mentioned, I also think your assumption is too categorical.
You said:
"At least as far as I know, they're not buying bulk dupe China pre-blended concentrate."
I actually know of at least one of the companies you listed that sells interpretations of Creed and Amouage fragrances. So I wouldn't make the leap from "they are large enough to formulate themselves" to "therefore they aren't sourcing pre-made concentrates anywhere in their supply chain."
Those aren't mutually exclusive possibilities.
A company can formulate some products itself, source certain bases or accords externally, manufacture some fragrances in-house, and have completely different arrangements for other products. The fact that a company produces its own distinctive interpretations of different fragrances doesn't establish what its raw-material or concentrate supply chain looks like. I don't like mentioning names but I can think of atleast 3-4 companies here in Australia, who literally started off in the back of a deli shop and now are going global simply selling dupes as the main product. Then later on they basically did some combination of dupes with their own label.
And this is exactly why I was careful to distinguish the 'existence of bulk pre-composed concentrates' from the claim that 'every major clone house simply buys them and adds alcohol'. The former is something I know exists. The latter would obviously require evidence on a company-by-company basis.
In fact, your own point about the different interpretations is compatible with this. A supplier doesn't necessarily sell one magical "Aventus clone" that every customer receives unchanged. Concentrates can be modified, blended, diluted, reformulated, or used as a starting point. There are plenty of ways the final product can become distinct from another company's version.
The other thing I'd question is the idea that because the technology exists to get very close to 1:1, the reason clone houses don't do it is simply that they choose to make cheaper compromises.
That's certainly part of it, but I think the economics are more complicated.
A true reconstruction is not simply about identifying the molecules. You still have to determine what materials are being used, what quality they're at, how they're dosed, how they interact over time, what is missing from the analytical picture, and whether the result actually behaves like the reference fragrance on skin.
And once you start doing that properly, you aren't necessarily saving as much money as people imagine. You still have formulation work, testing, maturation, production, quality control, packaging, compliance, distribution, marketing, etc.
So I agree with you that the $40–60 clone isn't generally trying to be an analytically perfect reconstruction. But I don't think that proves the industry can't produce something considerably closer. It may simply demonstrate that there is little commercial incentive to spend the additional money required to chase that last 10–20%.
And that actually brings me back to the original point I was making.
There is a tendency in fragrance discussions to imagine that "clone" is one homogeneous category. It isn't.
There are: 1. generic pre-composed smell-alike concentrates, 2. private-label products using those concentrates, 3. fragrances reconstructed from GCMS, 4. fragrances formulated by independent perfumers, 5. large-scale manufacturers with their own formulation departments, 6. brands using external perfumers and/or fragrance houses, and everything in between.
The consumer often can't tell which model they're actually buying.
And that's why I don't think the fact that Creed, Amouage, Lattafa, Rasasi, a small Western indie and a tourist-shop fragrance may all ultimately involve external manufacturers or compounding houses tells us very much by itself. "Made externally" and "copied from a pre-made clone concentrate" are two completely different propositions.
As for Creed specifically, I also wouldn't get too hung up on whether the perfumer is technically an employee of Creed. My original point wasn't about the employment contract. It was about the amount of expertise, development, evaluation and formulation work that can sit behind an established fragrance compared with the consumer perception that a clone is simply "the same thing for less."
And finally, I think your observation about the industry being copycat from top to bottom is actually one of the more interesting aspects of this whole discussion. The difference isn't necessarily "original companies are pure and clone companies are evil." The industry has always involved inspiration, reinterpretation, competition, licensing, perfumer houses, contract manufacturing and, occasionally, fairly blatant copying.
The more interesting question is "where the line is between legitimate reinterpretation, commercial imitation, and simply buying somebody else's pre-made formula and putting your own label on it."
That's the distinction I was trying to get at.
