Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York

Pierce Mattie: What has been the hottest topic lately on your message boards?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: Our Upcoming Events forum gets lots of traffic. Sometimes we announce our events there first before emailing our members about them! So, it’s very important to visit our site and wander around. There’s always an exciting viral buzz connected to our events. Our “Scent of the Day” board is also very active, with people posting daily and sharing their favorites. Many a friendship has been formed through that forum! Sniffapalooza has become a very strong and close-knit family and folks check in regularly to see what everyone’s discovering, wearing, recommending, & buying. Also, news of new fragrance books and publications surface here, and we also have a section for job opportunities in the fragrance industry.

Pierce Mattie: Who are your key advertisers right now?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: Most of our other advertisers are those we share links with, like osMoz.com, aedes.com, luckyscent.com, apothia.com, aromawear.com, beautyfashion.com and firstinfragrance.com. We are an Amazon affiliate, and participate in some other advertising programs. We have great opportunities for companies to create their own ads, and our rates are quite reasonable. We get approximately 800,000 hits/month and most are well-educated fragrance enthusiasts who buy a lot of fragrance.

Pierce Mattie: What scent do you find yourself wearing during the day and at night? And in the bedroom? Which one does your husband love the most?

Karen Adams: I gravitate towards scents with patchouli/musk basenotes. This might have something to do with scent memories from my teen years. However, I also find that those elements are very compatible with my skin chemistry. Since I work in healthcare, I keep my scents light and neutral during the day (i.e. Gendarme Carriere, Bobbi Brown Almost Bare, Apothia Pearl, L’Artisan Jatamansi.) On weekends, or if I’m going out at night, I add some patchouli (Memoire Liquide Soixante Six, Bois 1920 Real Patchouly, Etat Libre Rossy de Palma, Bond No. 9 Nuits de NoHo, Frederic Malle Dans tes Bras.)

I have a diverse Fragrance Wardrobe, organized by scent family, and a ‘current rotation’ of scents that I chose from daily and edit each season. I’m just switching over to my Spring scents, now that the weather is warming up. It includes fragrances with lighter, green notes, but most share my signature patchouli in the basenotes. Interestingly enough, I rarely get a fragrance compliment from my husband! He doesn’t wear fragrance, and he doesn’t really notice when I do either. I tend to apply my fragrances lightly and basically wear them for my own enjoyment. Certain scents will brighten my mood, make me feel grounded, help me de-stress, or evoke a pleasant scent memory.

Karen Dubin: I like to call myself an equal opportunity fragrance lover because I have the capacity to love a lot of different types of fragrance! And I wear the same scents all the times, doesn’t matter if it’s day or night. I tend to fall in love with resinous, woody, spicy, incensy scents, but I am also a fan of rose, iris and violet, and I will try almost anything with amber or patchouli or leather in it. I like scents that have a twist, like anisette, and don’t smell like anything else I already own.

My husband likes light, fruity florals, nothing too heavy, and he seems to be a fan of blackcurrant and watermelon. Currently I’m reaching for Prada Orange Blossom, Kenzo Flower Oriental, Chanel 28 La Pausa, Guerlain Little Black Dress (that blackcurrant note!), L’Artisan Poivre Piquant, Tom Ford Champaca, Bond No. 9 Little Italy, Mark Buxton Black Angel, Memoire Liquide Ambre Ancien, I Profumidi Firenze Tuscania Comme de Garcons 2, & CaronAimez Moi (anisette!)

Pierce Mattie: What is an upcoming trend that you are seeing with scents? Is it the indy going strong? The 80’s classics coming back? The continued use of celebrity spokespeople? What do you see?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: New launches are showing us lots of citrus - orange blossom, lemon, grapefruit, neroli, lime, & bergamot. And florals are back in a big way – the rose has been enjoying a resurgence over the last few years, and jasmine and iris seem to be everywhere. The continuing trend of incense, patchouli, spices & woods is still going strong.

Beautiful bottles are back as well! Armani’s new Onde line is one great example. The Niche and independent lines are thriving, and more of these artisanal companies seem to be springing up every week. At our Sniffapalooza Fragrance Fair in Dusseldorf this past March, we discovered several wonderful niche brands that we don’t have yet in the US. And because they are so unique, there is room for all of them!

Celebrity spokespeople are great for the fragrance industry. Keeps fragrance in the spotlight & creates excitement –we can all have a little of the glamour of a movie or tv star. This is one marketing trend that will continue and will always be around.

80’s classics coming back – they never really disappeared from our fragrance wardrobes. We’ve always appreciated them. Opium and Paris are two beautiful 80’s scents that continue to sell well.

Pierce Mattie: What fragrance(s) from 2008 do you deem the most successful from conception to consumer launch, avocation and usage; what scent(s) really did the best job? If you dare say (and you don’t have to) who did the worst or should I say who do you seem as needing a do-over?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: First, we need to tell you that we do not criticize fragrance in a negative way. It is very possible to review a fragrance without tearing it apart. We have the capacity to love many different types of fragrances, and you must take into account that fragrance is a very personal and subjective thing, and it smells differently on different types of skin.

Prada Infusion d’Iris is an example of a very successful production from conception to consumer launch in 2008, and it’s still going strong. It represents the brand very well, and the juice smells great! It is not too sweet or ‘perfumey’ and is very light, so it can be worn in a multitude of situations. The packaging & bottle are elegant. This was a very well thought out production. Prada seems to be continuing this marketing success with their new Orange Blossom scent, which has a clean, fresh, slightly soapy accord.

Gwen Stefani Harajaku Lovers fragrances spoke very well to their demographic – the packaging was adorable and the scents were fun & playful. They perfectly embodied Gwen Stefani and her look and this was an immediate hit with young girls.

Bond No. 9 always does a great job with their concept, juice & packaging. The scents in their Andy Warhol collection are wonderful and their look stays true to the aesthetic of Andy Warhol. Andy Warhol Silver Factory actually looks like an updated really modern version of the Campbell’s soup can and the fragrance is a gorgeous shared scent. The other scents are Union Square & Lexington Avenue, both with carefully designed bottles that fit the theme of a time in Warhol’s life.

Pierce Mattie: With the recession, what price range do you see consumers spending within their comfort zone on perfume?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: Interestingly enough, people may not be buying that new car or that new house or taking that expensive ski vacation, but they want to make themselves feel better and have a small piece of luxury so they are still buying fragrance. The $50 – $150 range seems to be the most popular with fragrance consumers currently, and we’ve noticed that body products seem to be coming down in price.

Pierce Mattie: In Whiff! The Revolution of Scent Communication in the Information Age by C. Russell Brumfield what did you take away from his book that you apply to your daily business model at Sniffapalooza?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: Russell attended our Perfume Workshop in January, but we’ve been so busy that we haven’t had the pleasure of reading his book yet! Our daily philosophy is that we celebrate fragrance as an art, and perfumers are like artists to us. We enjoy sharing our passion for fragrance, and in this process we help to educate, and communicate the pleasures of fragrance. And it turns out that we’re really good at getting people excited about fragrance! One of the most valuable things that has come out of Sniffapalooza is that we were able to show the fragrance industry a consumer they didn’t even know existed – the really enthusiastic, informed, savvy, curious consumer who is hungry for knowledge and buys a lot of fragrance. Also importantly, we gave the consumer a voice and the industry is listening!

Pierce Mattie: Your social media network, who do you love chatting with on Twitter or Facebook?

Karen Adams; Karen Dubin: We love chatting about what scents we’re wearing, letting people know what’s in our fragrance wardrobes and getting the word out about new fragrances. We have our own Sniffapalooza Facebook page with a very substantial list of members, and on our own individual Facebook pages we talk about fragrance just about every day.

We have a huge amount of people following us on Twitter, so we like to tweet when we attend a special event to let our followers know what we’re up to when they can’t be with us. We tweeted during our entire Spring Fling Sniffapalooza weekend in NYC earlier this month and caused quite a stir! We recently attended ‘Naturals in Fragrance and Flavor; Rochelle Bloom & Mandy Aftel in Conversation Featuring A Unique Collaboration with Todd English’ at Olives Restaurant at the W Hotel in NYC and tweeted about the fragrances and flavors as the food was served.

The FiFi Finalist Breakfast at the Mandarin Oriental was another great opportunity to tweet. We twittered the Top Five Finalists as they were announced. It was especially exciting because Sniffapalooza Magazine, our online publication, had entered 3 articles in the new Blogger category, and we walked away with TWO of the Top Five Finalist spots!

Thanks to both Karen's for their time--you can learn more about Sniffapalooza at www.Sniffapalooza.com. You can also read a previous interview regarding Sniffapalooza on our Beauty PR blog.