How mad is that? There's another Bonkers perfume site...!

Source: Bonkers Fragrance

Do you ever google yourself? No really, the urge to do so isn't at all narcissistic, but rather driven by curiosity about one's own wider family. Well, if you have an unusual surname like Musson, you assume that anyone you might stumble upon in the Interwebs is related in not that many lateral hops across the family tree. Which admittedly doesn't always lead to the most felicitous of discoveries. There are at least two other Vanessa Mussons in the world: one is a waitress in a branch of Taco Bell in Michigan - very happy to be her distant cousin, especially given my endorsement of their slogan: 'Think outside the bun' - while the other is a convicted felon in Florida, who most recently acted as an accomplice in the brutal beating of a disabled man in his home. In the Nyle Magazine (full version here) we read:

'According to the Bay News 9 article, “Did Musson dye hair to avoid capture?,”Musson has been arrested six times in six years. In 2010, Musson was arrested on drug charges and she spent a year in Florida’s state prison....“We have already had to send our SWAT team out once to a location we thought she was at, and when we find other locations we are prepared to send our SWAT team out again because she’s proven she can be violent.”.... After Musson was arrested, she was placed in the Hillsborough County jail on the charges of attempted murder, false imprisonment, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, grand theft of a motor vehicle, and grand theft.'

My more notorious namesake ~ Source: florida.arrests.org

Now as well as googling myself in the hope of uncovering some more savoury Mussons to offset my recidivist relative, I have been known to google my blog. You see lately I have noticed a big spike in page views, though I cannot think of any reason why that should be so, and I thought to google the name in case it led me to some forum discussion or other citation that could possibly have generated this extra traffic.

I didn't manage to shed any light on that, but in the attempt I chanced upon another perfume site with 'Bonkers' in the name! It popped up at the top of Page 2 in the search results - 'Bonkers Fragrance' - an online retailer based in Johor Bahru, in Southern Malaysia. The link led me to a Facebook page, but strangely not to a website, though there is a postal address associated with the company, and a website for an associated fashion business called Bonkers Inc Shop.

Ooh, I just accidentally clicked to request a price list! There is also a phone number to call, so they may take perfume orders in a message or on the phone. Bonkers Fragrance carries a range of 'original perfumes' - for which read authentic? / brand new? - and another called 'preloved', which is of course the sexed up term nowadays for 'used' or 'secondhand'.

So there is this slight oddity of the company's low key presence, plus the fact that it should have chosen 'Bonkers' as part of its name - for I am not so presumptuous as to imagine that it is consciously copying my site. But to my mind the word 'bonkers' does carry connotations of eccentricity or something a bit startling at least - so I would expect offbeat or unusual products perhaps, whereas the ones illustrated in the Facebook photo albums are on the face of it unremarkable and mainstream.

The company's rather fetching cover photo

Ooh, the Facebook page just refreshed and I found some more information on my cyber-rival - here is an edited version:

"Selling Original, UK Grade Perfumes, body mist or anything related to smell great :D

Why spend more while you can have the same scent with us?

UK regular (lasts 8-10 hours) : RM160
UK Tester (lasts 8-12 hours) : RM170
UK Super Tester (lasts 24 hours) : RM220

More thicker, better & more lasting than the counter"

Seemingly they only sell within Malaysia, so that rules out most of my Bonkers readers, I should think. And I am now intrigued by the meaning of 'regular', 'tester' and 'super tester' in this context. The relative longevity of each version of a fragrance suggests that the testers are something more than simply bottles without a box.

For info, the Ringgit is worth 0.17 of £1, so the 'regular' price equates to £27 for an unspecified size of bottle! Hmm, maybe the perfumes are bonkersly bargainous after all?

HQ of Bonkers Fragrance ~ Source; propertyguru.com.my

And what's all this business about 'More thicker, better & more lasting than the counter'? I take 'counter' to be an example of metonymy, by the way, just as business executives are sometimes referred to as 'suits'. Are these copies / reformulations of branded perfumes but at a higher concentration? And then they go and take away the box?? Or there was never a box?

So yes, to answer the question I pose myself in the title of this post; 'Not very mad', but not a little baffling.'


If you have any insights into what these products might be exactly, do let us know in the comments!