The Scent Crimes Series: No 19 - Diptyque's email marketing campaign: "You can unsubscribe, but you can never leave", and how I finally 'addressed' the issue

Source: palmspringslife.com

I like Diptyque a lot. Their perfumes, I mean. I own a bottle of Eau Duelle - which I did admittedly try to sell - but that was only because it was 100ml and I was never going to get through it, given the size of my stash generally. I had already decanted more than enough for my ongoing needs. Anyway, that didn't come to anything, because the buyer noticed that the top notes had vamoosed, causing the scent's pyramid structure to collapse like a building brought down in a controlled implosion...only a lot slower, and in a way that was sadly imperceptible to its owner. I also have a bottle of Volutes edt in a more manageable 50ml format. I love that, and expect to use it all by and by - which is fighting talk, I know. Indeed Volutes was my SOTE at the International Design and Architecture Awards ceremony I attended on Friday with M, the designer friend and colleague featured in my last post, one of whose wallpaper collections had made the shortlist. The Diptyque narrowly pipped Ta'if, because M is averse to all things spicy, from curries and barbecue flavour nuts to third party sillage that might accidentally waft into her vicinity. So Volutes it was.

Given that on the Belgian trip I forgot ALL my toiletries, you would think I would have been totally organised on our overnight stay in London. Yet I managed to bring not one but two toothbrushes, although I forgot the particular blusher that would have gone with my outfit, and also forgot the brush that would have gone with the blusher I did bring, which was the wrong colour. Meanwhile, M forgot perfume! Or rather, a choice of perfume. She did find a small mini of Gucci Flora in the bottom of her handbag, but I managed to talk her out of it as being more of a daytime scent, and tipped a bag of samples on the bed for her consideration, that I had hastily grabbed before leaving. Interestingly, M was drawn to Jo Malone Peony and Blush Suede, which like the Gucci features peony, but the suede note just tipped it into more evening-y territory. Meanwhile, the 'Blush' in the name teasingly underlined my latest senior moment on the makeup front.

The view from Table 38

But back to Diptyque. I am keen to set my stall out as a general fan of the brand. I also love their sample presentation, in those dear little slide-y out boxes, with their striking monochrome livery. Some of which have ended up going the band's way for that very reason. And my brother and his wife are also big fans - I'd say Diptyque is probably their joint favourite house along with Miller Harris, and anytime they come within orbit of a Diptqyque concession, they inevitably make 'his and hers' purchases, most recently Oyédo and 34 Boulevard Saint Germain respectively.

What else is there to say about Diptyque? They are famously - and fabulously - generous with their free samples, which astonishing largesse moved me to devote a whole post to the subject!

But when it comes to Diptyque's direct marketing activities, or more specifically their email campaigns with news of offers, launches, and what have you, the company annoyed the heck out of me. I must have received at least one email a week - or that is my perception, which is what counts at the end of the day, and this doesn't remotely correlate with the frequency of my thinking about the brand, let alone considering a further purchase. Which is what I find irritating about overly frequent email contact by perfume houses: the assumption - not arrogance exactly, but perhaps more a belief in the power of attrition to bludgeon the consumer into submission, I don't know - but it is certainly taken as read that you are sufficiently interested in the brand to want to hear from them as often as it pleases them to mail you. Why, I don't want to hear from my dearest friends that often, never mind a fragrance brand!

I put up with this for months, maybe even years - my recall is happily vague on the matter - then it got to the point where I simply didn't read the emails anymore before deleting them. And eventually my frustration gained such a head of steam that I tried to unsubscribe in the usual way. And yet the emails kept coming, even after factoring in a period of 'tailing off' grace, while Diptyque got their databases in order. And still they came... So I kept deleting them, and periodically unsubscribing again whenever I could be bothered, though by now I was not at all hopeful of it working. It was very much a case of being stuck in that Hotel California song of the title...

"Trouble viewing this email?" I wish!!!

And it wasn't as though the emails were amusing, like those ones I used to get with similar frequency from Signature Fragrances, which also spawned an (amused and maddened) blog post.

In the end, on 13th September, the penny suddenly dropped as to why the unsubscribing process was failing to stick to the wall. While the emails were coming to my correct address, the pop up asking me to confirm that I wanted my email to be removed from their list referred to an address that was not mine!

It was c.......@d.....com!! WTF??

So seconds later, I dashed off an email to Diptyque's general address explaining what was going on, and asking them to additionally remove my blog address - flittersniffer@gmail.com - for good measure. And that finally seems to have done the trick. Big sigh of relief. But it would have been nice to have had a human response, apologising either for the glitch in the unsubscribing mechanism, or for the deluge of emails that preceded it. And had their campaigns not been so intense in the first place, I would not have minded receiving them, whereas now I know I could miss news of a new perfume that might be right up my street. And there are also some very attractive illustrations to Diptyque's emails, such as this bird and foliage one, promoting what I take to be a new release, Exuberant Vetiver, though obviously I haven't read it. ;)

Source: Diptyque

So this is my second post now about excessive direct marketing. Sign of the times, I guess.

Do you have any pet peeves to bring to the table - or the inbox, rather? I would love to know who you consider as the worst offendors.

Or does that sort of intensive mailing not bother you?

Oh, and here is another shot of the hotel where the awards ceremony was held. There are no actual volutes on this particular column - that would be the ones with Ionic capitals, I see in Wikipedia - but note the recurring palm theme in this post. ;) Yes, along with pineapples, I am a sucker for palms in all their guises!

'Use it or lose it!': Travalos succumb to sub-post office syndrome

Danaus's Daughters ~ Source: Wikipedia

I am just back from a nine day trip to Germany, the run up to which was so very hectic that I uncharacteristically didn't have time even to do one of my quick 'Bonkers is off on tour again'-type posts before I left. Nor did I finish my work project in time, so I ended up spending the first couple of days of our journey across three countries typing up my remaining interviews on a clatter of trains (I use the word advisedly), that were more or less prone to sudden unexpected lurching manoeuvres.

I originally intended to publish this post before I went away, as it was prompted by the perfume selection process for my trip. In my state of general disarray, however, I didn't get beyond writing the first two sentences. But 'I have started, so I'll finish', to quote Magnus Magnusson on Mastermind. There will additionally be specific tour-related posts to follow. And one on the bathroom(!), which was a step nearer completion today. Just a step, mind. And one or two on perfume, before I get too off-topic to warrant the moniker of perfume blogger.

Can it really be nearly two years since my last post about Travalos? I do seem to have the urge to write about these handy travel receptacles from time to time - completely unprompted by any commercially driven poke from the manufacturers, I hasten to add - and today (for which read 'about a fortnight ago') is another such occasion.

I decided to wear Diptyque Volutes edt at the weekend (whichever that one was - w/e of 26th November at a guess), and reached for the Travalo rather than the full bottle, only to find it was almost empty. I did a slight double take at this, as I didn't remember using it very much, not even 4ml's worth. I got the bottle out and duly refilled it, before something prompted me to examine the fill levels of my other half dozen or so Travalos.

To my surprise they were all empty, with one or two exceptions. As with the Volutes, I couldn't remember draining them dry, or even wearing them at all lately, ergo the only explanation had to be that dreaded sword of Damocles which strikes terror in every decanting perfumista's heart, namely evaporation...the same mysterious chemical process by which ex-Mr Bonkers' beer glasses famously used to empty.

And when you stop to think about it, the Travalo is after all a container with a permanently exposed hole in the bottom, the very hole which enables you to just sit it on the atomiser of your perfume bottle and pump up the perfume without the added faff of having to remove any cover or top. Or bottom, to be anatomically correct about it.

Shades of Tiny Tears...?

If I may myself briefly lurch from Damocles to Danaus, the Travalo principle neatly illustrates the Greek myth of Danaus's fifty daughters, who were earmarked to marry the fifty sons of Danaus's twin brother Aegyptus - against their father's wishes - and I can't speak for their own. Hold on, would that not be a mass nuptial of first cousins? - but moving on...this is ancient history, after all. So anyway, at their father's behest, 49 of the women killed their husbands on their wedding night, and were condemned "to spend eternity carrying water in a sieve or perforated device. In the classical tradition, they come to represent the futility of a repetitive task that can never be completed." Much like the Myth of Sisyphus indeed, but involving a leaky bucket rather than a rolling stone.

So if anyone is not already familiar with the phenomenon of the evaporating Travalo, I hope this post will serve as a timely reminder. 'Use it or lose it' as they say of sub-post offices, muscles, foreign language skills, inkjet cartridges, and sundry other other items that need to be in regular service not to wither on the vine. But I will stop right there at the mention of vines, for that way lies yet another Greek myth - of Tantalus and his tantalising bunches of grapes - which perhaps have a tenuous relevance to the topic in hand in the sense that you reach for a Travalo, and another and another, only to be serially disappointed.

Oh, if anyone could use a Travalo (in gold) that had Chanel 1932 in it, or one (in pink) that once housed L'Agent Provocateur L'Agent, drop me a line, and it is yours. You know I don't believe in washing the blessed things.

Diptyque Volutes edt: the 'Gift With Purchase' bar just got higher...! ;-)

So at some point in the anti-climactic week that followed my dismantling of the Christmas tree, and spurred on by Undina's recent - and uncharacteristically impulsive - purchase of Diptyque Volutes edt, I finally cracked and bought it myself.  After all, Undina and I own 'her and her' Burberry lipsticks in similar tones of pinky nude, so it feels not unfitting that we should also have twin bottles of this beautiful smoky scent.

I had just drained the sample of Volutes edt given to me by Tamsin when she visited, and couldn't bear to be without it, however laughable that may sound coming from a person with a very bad case of SABLE syndrome ('Stash Above And Beyond Life Expectancy' for anyone unfamiliar with the acronym).

When my bottle arrived from the Diptyque store in London, I could not believe my eyes at the cornucopia of freebies that came with it, occupying not one but two drawstring bags.  (I hadn't mentioned that I was a blogger, in case that might just have prompted such unusual levels of largesse. ;-) )  One bag contained a dozen samples of other perfumes in the line, all housed in dinky little boxes and including the edp version of Volutes, which is fundamentally different from the edt.  The other bag was stuffed with sachets of bodycare products - every kind of pampering unguent, oil, creme, lotion and gel known to man, and quite a few that aren't ('milky veil for the body' and 'smoothing body polish' being chief amongst them).

So yes, I think Diptyque just raised the 'Gift With Purchase' bar a few feet...or can you top it?  What's the best haul of complimentary gubbins you have received with a perfume purchase?

But for now though - and notwithstanding the fact that it is only January 12th - I think this may just prove to be the customer service coup of the year!

Hmm, and so much for my resolution about not buying any more full bottles in 2014...;)

My crazy swag, bagged!

Top Sniffs - and Nasty Niffs - of 2013 - a slightly wonky edition...;-)

Source: hedgeco.net

It's been a couple of years since my last round up of the best and worst of the year in scent terms - I just checked and 2011 was indeed the last one.  This coincided with a stage in my perfume j***ney when I was still doing a lot of testing and seeking out samples of new things - aided by overseas business trips that took me to top perfumista hunting grounds like Paris and Zurich and Berlin.

Then 2012 was consumed by upheaval in my personal life and the house move - but though I was diverted from the business of chasing after novelty, my fragrant Wanderlust was already starting to wane, and I was bonding more with what I already owned.  Much as Birgit has explained in her retrospective of 2013, though not quite so marked.  Moreover, all the work I have had last year has been local - or on the telephone! - so my sniffing oppos have been much curtailed anyway.

Offsetting that, I seem to have received more promotional product lately, but these packages rarely contained any of the few lemmings I was harbouring (can you harbour a lemming? - you can now!) - more a case of random stuff that perfume houses saw fit to send me, often the smaller, newer brands looking for exposure in social media.  And just occasionally new lemmings were ignited this way (can you set a lemming on fire?...of course you can!).

Lemming on ice (best I could find - and topical at least!) Source: pogo.lakesideschool.org

So in view of the woefully limited and lopsided nature of my sniffing experience lately, this post will do no more than nod in the direction of actual releases from the past year, and focus on my perfume-themed highlights of 2013, however they came about...

And as I mentioned in my 3.6 year stock take, this hobby remains as much about the people I meet through it as perfume itself, hence why I would probably say my happiest moments of last year were the meet-ups with fellow perfumistas: the Smelly Cakey Drinky event in March, hooking up with Freddie Albrighton in April, Lucy Raubertas, Undina and Denyse Beaulieu in June, Natalie in August, and Lavanya and Tara in London just last week.

NB Apologies for the veritable thicket of hyperlinks in this post - they do get more sparse from this point on!

TOP SNIFFS (etc)

Best niche perfumes

En Voyage Perfumes Zelda - a sumptuous floral oriental with (to quote myself!) 'a sultry magnolia heart in a crisp galbanum shell'.  Zelda is a Southern belle in a pencil skirt, Vivien Leigh in geek glasses, and other images of optimally constrained flounce and sensuality. (Thanks to Natalie of Another Perfume Blog for the sample!)

Puredistance BLACK - review here.

Source: Puredistance

Neela Vermeire Créations Ashoka - If I didn't already own not one but TWO bottles of PG Bois Naufragé, I would have considered Ashoka to be FBW; and though I prefer it by quite some margin to the PG, it is too much in the same 'milky-woody-fig' vein to justify a further acquisition. ;-(

Source: Neela Vermeire Créations

AND

Best under-the-radar niche release

Téo Cabanel Barkhane - a hauntingly beautiful woody oriental with the understated snuffed out quality of Diptyque Volutes edt or Puredistance BLACK, rather than the chutzpah of Amouage Lyric Woman or Tauer L'Air du  Désert Marocain - though all four scents have a similarly elusive air of mystery to them.

Source: Luckyscent

Honorable mention - niche

Chanel Les Exclusifs 1932 - Chanel No 5 meets Tom Ford Violet Blonde and makes out on a bed of silk.

Frédéric Malle Dries Van Noten / Denise Van Outen(!)- a wispy biscuity scent unlike the aggravated Danish pastry that is Serge Lutens Jeux de Peau and other patisserie perfumes of that kidney.


Favourite perfume discoveries in 2013 from earlier years

Diptyque Volutes edt - see also Barkhane above: a cosy, smoky, powdery caress of a scent (thanks to Tamsin Simmill for the sample of this one).

Serge Lutens Fille en Aiguilles - I didn't think I liked a pine note in perfume, but the needle has finally dropped!

Yesterday's Christmas tree carnage

L'Erbolario Méharées - a poor man's Musc Ravageur with notes of myrrh and dates (thanks to Odiferess for samples of these last two).


Best oud perfume release (that's enough now, please)

(I have a special note category - for oud?? Yep, that is how 'off kilter'/odd my year has been...)

Exidolo Thirty-Three - wispy rose and oud composition using 33-year old Chinese oud oil, if vintage is your thing!  Wild-harvested no less. It is paradoxically evanescent for a scent built around such a tenacious note, but that is okay by me.


Best cheapie oud scent discovery (for any 'dyed in the wood' oud  lovers out there)

Dehnal oud

My friend Gillie tumbled to this, and it only costs about £2 for a purse-sized roll-on! Plus it has the seal of approval of a bunch of men on Basenotes, and goodness knows they don't take any prisoners...;)

So cheap it's rude not to - whether you like oud or not!

Most oddball use of a note in a perfume

Mark Buxton Emotional Rescue (gooseberry!)

I don't think Emotional Rescue the perfume will replace chocolate or wine any time soon.  And gooseberry's place is firmly in a fool.


Perfume I smelt briefly, have no sample of, and which is now haunting me

Ramon Monégal Ambra di Luna - the moment is captured here.


Perfumes I think I would have liked a lot that I haven't smelt

Dita Von Teese Erotique
Marni
Givenchy Dahlia Noir L'Eau


Most liked perfume that a SA insisted I try (enforced sampling normally being the kiss of death, as we know)

Louise Kennedy (the new scent by the Irish designer of that name)

Described as a 'romantic, floral bouquet with refreshing top notes of geranium bourbon, mimosa and Rose de Mai underscored with bergamot and lemon'.  The lemon gives it a pleasant, almost granular tartness, while I also detected a galbanum or hyacinth prickle that stopped the whole composition from straying into girlish tweeness.  Before, sadly, the Miss Dior Chérie-style bottle dragged it squarely back again.

We are so over chunky tops bedecked in pink bows... Source: www.her.ie

Most eye-catching set of perfume samples

Téo Cabanel

Spirograph squiggles(!) and meticulous colour coordination 

Most unexpected event of the entire year (in a good, horizon-broadening kind of a way)

The Neela Vermeire chicken liver incident.


NASTY NIFFS

Worst niche niff

Viktoria Minya Hedonist

Now I don't go a bundle on boozy notes or peach - or excessive honey twizzling - in a perfume, so this scent was always going to have its work cut out, but still.  It was muddy, with a strange, slightly off note, as Freddie of Smellythoughts is my witness!

(Hedonist also takes the award for the perfume where I felt most out of step with the views of other bloggers.  Last year that accolade would have gone to Puredistance Opardu if I had written a review of 2012 - it was pretty enough, no question, yet came off as a little too mainstream and laundry musky on my skin.)


Worst mainstream niff

Giorgio Armani Si

Who let that 'orrible blackcurrant note out!  And the overpowering vanilla accord that mugs you on the drydown.  And hey, I like vanilla.  I can almost tolerate vanilla-scented tealights, but not quite.  I disliked this scent so much I can't even be bothered to give it its rightful grave accent.  It is gravely bad!

Source: Fragrantica

Marketing let down of the year

Ormonde Jayne has been one of my absolute favourite houses, but I feel compelled to let readers know that its Perfume Portrait service - glowing review here - now costs £20 if you book it in advance, but bizarrely remains free if you just walk in off the street.  And contrary to the time I had it done for myself, there is now an expectation that you will make a purchase on the spot, which of course is alien to most perfumistas who prefer to procure a sample first and take their time deciding before springing for a full bottle.  Assuming they even like anything that much from Ormonde Jayne's relatively compact range (though I personally have a very high strike rate with them).  Now it may be that this is not in fact general policy, but it was clearly the deal when I went along with a couple of friends, one of whom had the portrait done.  Also, the exploding flower tea ceremony appears to be a thing of the past, albeit we arrived a little late - we were only offered water.  And neery a chocolate either.

UPDATE - re the Ormonde Jayne saga above, see Lavanya's comment below for the latest developments, in which she 'outs' herself and Tara as the other participants - it was Lavanya who had the portrait done. ;)