Designer and niche fragrances mainly differ in the type of company behind them and the audience they are created for. Designer fragrances usually come from larger fashion or luxury brands and are often made to appeal to a wider audience, while niche fragrance houses tend to focus mainly on perfume and may be more willing to create unusual or less familiar scents.
That doesn't mean niche perfume is automatically better than designer perfume. After working closely with experienced perfumers, I've learned that the label on a bottle tells you surprisingly little about the actual quality of the fragrance inside it.
Luxaro is a UK-based fragrance brand, with our perfumes made in Grasse, France, where we work with experienced perfumers who have more than 40 years of experience. Working with them has changed the way I judge designer and niche fragrances. I now pay much more attention to the ingredients, balance, development, performance and, most importantly, whether I actually enjoy wearing the fragrance.
Before starting Luxaro, what did you personally think the difference was between designer and niche fragrances?
Before starting Luxaro, I thought designer fragrances were generally more mainstream, while niche fragrances were more exclusive, harder to find and usually much more expensive. Like many customers, I assumed that if a niche perfume cost £200 or £300, there must be something inside the bottle that made it much better than a less expensive designer fragrance.
Working in the fragrance business has changed that view quite a lot. Through working with experienced perfumers, I've learned much more about what actually goes into creating a fragrance. The name on the bottle doesn't tell you the quality of the ingredients, how difficult the formula was to develop, how well balanced it is or how much of the price actually relates to the fragrance itself.
I still enjoy both designer and niche perfumes, but I don't automatically assume niche means better anymore. I've smelled expensive niche fragrances I wouldn't personally buy, and I've smelled designer fragrances that I think are excellent. I now judge what's inside the bottle before I judge the category it belongs to.
When you actually smell designer and niche fragrances side by side, what differences do you tend to notice?
The difference I notice most often is that niche fragrances can sometimes be more unusual, while designer fragrances are often created to appeal to a wider group of people. That's not a rule, because there are plenty of unusual designer perfumes and easy-to-wear niche perfumes, but it's something I've noticed from smelling many fragrances over the years.
A big designer brand may want a fragrance that thousands or even millions of people will enjoy. That can mean creating something that smells pleasant, familiar and easy to wear. Combinations of fruity, floral and creamy notes are one example of how a fragrance can feel approachable while still having different layers as it develops. A smaller niche fragrance house may be more comfortable creating something unusual because it isn't necessarily trying to please such a large audience. It might put much more attention on leather, smoke, oud, tobacco, unusual woods or another note that some people love and others don't.
But unusual doesn't automatically mean better. That's really important. Sometimes I've smelled an unusual fragrance and appreciated how creative it was without actually wanting to wear it myself. I've also smelled designer perfumes that aren't particularly unusual but are beautifully balanced and very enjoyable to wear. A fragrance combining citrus, floral and soft woody notes, for example, can feel familiar and easy to wear while still developing in an interesting way on the skin.
For me, the question isn't which category is better. It's whether the fragrance itself is good.
Do you think the terms "designer" and "niche" tell customers anything about the actual quality of a perfume?
No, I don't think the terms "designer" and "niche" tell customers whether a perfume is actually good quality. They can tell you something about the type of company behind the fragrance, but they can't tell you everything that's inside the bottle.
Imagine you have two perfumes in front of you. One comes from a famous designer brand and costs £100. The other comes from a niche fragrance house and costs £250. Just looking at those two prices and brand names doesn't tell you which one you'll enjoy more, which will smell better on your skin or which will last longer.
I think customers should smell the fragrance and pay attention to how it develops. Does it still smell good after the opening disappears? Does it feel balanced? Do you enjoy wearing it several hours later? This is particularly useful when deciding whether a sweet perfume will become too sweet, because the notes that appear later can completely change how the sweetness feels. Does the performance meet your expectations? Most importantly, would you actually want to wear it regularly?
Those questions tell me much more about whether a perfume is right for someone than simply asking whether it's designer or niche.
Have you ever bought an expensive niche fragrance and been disappointed by it, or tried a designer fragrance that performed much better than you expected?
Yes, I've tried expensive fragrances that disappointed me, including niche perfumes, and I've also tried designer fragrances that performed much better than I expected. I won't name particular brands because fragrance is very personal, and something I dislike could easily be somebody else's favourite perfume.
What I've learned is that price can create expectations. If you're paying £200 or £300 for a bottle, you naturally expect something special. I've tried expensive perfumes where I liked the opening but wasn't impressed with how they developed afterwards. I've also tried fragrances where the performance didn't match what I personally expected for the price.
On the other hand, I've worn designer fragrances that surprised me with how well they performed and how enjoyable they remained hours after spraying them. Some have been much less expensive than niche fragrances I've tried but have given me a better overall experience.
That's why I'm careful about saying expensive means better. Price and quality aren't the same thing, and neither are price and personal enjoyment.
From what you’ve learned working with experienced perfumers, does a niche fragrance necessarily cost more to make than a designer fragrance?
No, a niche fragrance doesn't necessarily cost more to make simply because it's niche. There are many things that can affect what a perfume costs to produce, and the type of brand is only one part of the picture.
I've learned this directly through working with our perfumers. Some formulas are relatively straightforward, while others can be much more complicated. Certain ingredients can also be considerably more expensive than others. Concentration, ingredient quality, the amount being produced, manufacturing, bottles and packaging can all affect the final figure.
I've experienced this myself with Luxaro. One fragrance we considered developing required a particularly complicated formula and some unusual, expensive materials. The perfume oil alone was going to cost us more than €3,000 per kilogram. That showed me very clearly how different the production cost of one fragrance can be from another.
At the same time, what a customer pays in a shop isn't simply the cost of the perfume liquid. Brands also have businesses to run, and things such as packaging, shops, advertising and marketing can contribute to the final selling price. So I wouldn't look at a £250 niche fragrance and assume the liquid must have cost two or three times more to produce than a £100 designer fragrance. You simply can't know that from the retail price alone.
Why do you think some niche fragrances smell more unusual or challenging than mainstream designer perfumes?
Some niche fragrances can smell more unusual because niche houses may have more freedom to create for a smaller audience rather than trying to make every fragrance appeal to as many people as possible.
If you're creating a fragrance for a huge international designer brand, you may want something that works for a very wide range of customers. Someone might smell it in a department store for a few minutes before deciding whether to buy it, so making it immediately pleasant and easy to understand can be important.
A niche house may be able to take more risks. It might build a fragrance around a very smoky note, strong leather, unusual woods, oud or another ingredient that divides opinion. Ten people might smell it and five might dislike it, but the other five might absolutely love it.
I think that's one of the interesting things about perfume. Not everything needs to appeal to everybody. But I would never say a fragrance is better simply because it's unusual. Creativity and quality aren't automatically the same thing. A simple fragrance that's beautifully put together can be just as impressive as something very unusual.
Have your perfumers ever shown you how the same fragrance idea could be created at different quality or price levels?
Yes, I've been offered different quality options by our perfumers, and this has taught me a lot about why the label on a perfume doesn't necessarily tell you what has gone into making it.
There can be different ways of approaching a fragrance depending on the materials being used and the budget available. I've been given the choice between lower-cost, medium and higher-quality options. For Luxaro, I normally choose the highest-quality option available to us because I'd rather put more of the budget into the fragrance itself. Customers are spending their hard-earned money, so I want them to receive something I'm comfortable putting the Luxaro name on.
What I found particularly interesting was learning that choosing the most expensive materials isn't as simple as saying, "This ingredient costs more, so the perfume will automatically smell better." An experienced perfumer still needs to understand how those materials work together. You could have expensive ingredients and still end up with a fragrance that isn't properly balanced.
That's why I pay much less attention now to whether something is called designer or niche. I want to know what decisions were made when the fragrance was created.
Do you think customers sometimes pay more for the name, packaging, exclusivity, or story surrounding a niche fragrance rather than the fragrance itself?
Yes, I think part of what customers pay for can be the name, packaging, exclusivity and experience surrounding a niche fragrance, but that applies to designer brands as well. I don't think there's anything automatically wrong with that either.
Some people love owning a beautiful bottle from a particular perfume house. They may enjoy the packaging, the shop experience, the history of the company and the feeling of owning something that isn't worn by everyone else. Those things have value to that customer, just as someone might pay more for a particular watch, handbag or pair of shoes.
Designer brands also spend money building their names, advertising their fragrances, creating elaborate packaging and selling through expensive retail locations. All of those things are part of running that kind of business.
My personal priority is different. I always come back to what's actually inside the bottle. If I had to choose between spending more money on impressive packaging or putting that money towards the fragrance, I'd choose the fragrance. That's the approach I've taken with Luxaro.
But that's my preference. If someone loves the whole experience that comes with an expensive niche or designer perfume and feels it's worth the money, there's nothing wrong with that.
Has running Luxaro changed the way you personally judge expensive designer and niche perfumes?
Yes, running Luxaro has completely changed the way I judge expensive designer and niche perfumes. Before working closely with perfumers, I probably paid much more attention to the brand, the price and my first impression when I sprayed something.
Now I pay much more attention to what happens afterwards. I'll smell the opening, but I also want to know what happens after 30 minutes, an hour and several hours. I notice whether the fragrance stays balanced, whether something starts overpowering everything else, how the base develops and whether I still enjoy smelling it later in the day.
I've also become much more careful about judging longevity. A fragrance doesn't have to fill an entire room for ten hours to be good. Some ingredients naturally disappear more quickly than others. A fresh citrus fragrance isn't necessarily poor quality because it doesn't behave like a heavy amber, vanilla or woody perfume. Learning how individual fragrance notes behave can make it much easier to understand why fresh, floral, sweet and woody perfumes can perform so differently.
Working with perfumers has taught me to look at the whole fragrance rather than one number, one ingredient, one concentration or one price tag. When I smell a £200 or £300 perfume now, I'm not thinking, "It's expensive, so it must be excellent." I'm thinking, "Do I actually think this fragrance justifies what I'd be paying for it?"
If a customer asked you, "Should I buy a designer fragrance or a niche fragrance?", what would your honest answer be?
My honest answer would be to choose the fragrance you genuinely enjoy wearing rather than choosing it simply because it's designer or niche.
Try it on your skin if you can and give it time. Don't judge it only from the first spray. See how it smells after an hour and later in the day. Think about whether you enjoy it, whether you're happy with the performance, whether you'd wear it regularly and whether the price feels reasonable for what you're getting.
If the fragrance you love happens to be a £300 niche perfume and you can comfortably afford it, there's nothing wrong with buying it. If the one you prefer is a £70 designer fragrance, don't assume you're choosing the worse perfume simply because it's cheaper or more widely available.
That's also something I've carried into Luxaro. We're a UK-based fragrance brand, and our perfumes are made in Grasse, France, where we work with experienced perfumers to develop our fragrances. What I've learned from working with those perfumers is that the label people put on a fragrance tells you far less than most people think.
Designer, niche, expensive or affordable, the most important question is still very simple: do you enjoy wearing it?
