Fragrantica, Unhinged Reviews and The Joy of Niche Internet Spaces

“Azure sky over an opulent winter wedding / doves bleeding into snowbanks … a vow of youthful purity – forever”. This is not a forgotten piece of 2010s Tumblr poetry but instead a review of the perfume Love Tuberose by Amouage. This tribute can be found on the page for the scent hosted by Fragrantica. The online resource has been a fragrance Wikipedia for almost seventeen years. Recently, it has become a beloved content mine as well.

It’s not difficult to see why: Site visitors risk exposure to an unexpected verbal barrage when they browse a page dedicated to a scent they were considering blind buying for their mum. The best of these descriptors are performed by TikTokers in dramatic readings and Instagram account @itsmellscrazyinhere cultivates a document of the outlandish free associations and stories, inspiring fans to share their own forays into describing scents. In some small way, the thoughts of Fragrantica users are finally being realised as a participatory art form that we are more used to contributing to mainstream social media.

Reviewers of all kinds have long been a cornerstone of internet culture, an antidote to the old-school mantra of ‘never read the comments’ that could plausibly be updated to ‘never get involved in the discourse started by engagement bait’. An almost redeemable part of Amazon is the review section, a medium that shared an amusing story of leggings that survived a traumatic skid down a hill, or one old man’s enjoyment when using a selfie stick. At the more highbrow end of the spectrum, Letterboxd has emerged in recent years as the preeminent method for cinephile clout chasers to memeify classics and new releases alike. Reviews may only be tales of consumption habits, but they are capable of provoking a touching level of creativity and humour that Fragrantica also excels at.
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For those nostalgic about the internet of a decade and a half earlier, the homepage of Fragrantica is a welcome callback. Among other things, it boasts the exact stats for things like the number of fragrances (over 87,000) and ‘perfume lovers’ (1.1 million+) that it is home to. Pre-review section, each scent’s profile page offers a ‘perfume pyramid’ with a visual depiction of every note that looks as if concepts like neroli or ambergris existed in the Frutiger Aero universe.

“Fragrantica reviews are great at provoking a reaction, turning the luxury product into high stakes drama.”

This all segues into how its users provide copious anecdotal evidence for the assertion that smell is the most evocative of all our senses. Some of the listed fragrances inspire lengthy spiels about the memories they are associated with: Jovan Musk inspires a story about Roy Orbison abandoning it as his signature scent after he was involved in an unfortunate accident with it when the reviewer was his roadie in the eighties. Others test the boundaries of a pithy putdown. “Smells like yesterday’s ass”, says one user of Room 1015’s Yesterday.

There is a rainbow of expression to be found with minimal digging. Fragrantica reviews are great at provoking a reaction, turning the luxury product into high stakes drama. At the same time, it is elevated from the typical content farms with the shared devotion to its highly visceral cause which contrasts with a growing negativity surrounding the internet as a cultural force today, especially when it comes to social media with a focus on words.

In a lauded New Yorker article late last year, Kyle Chayka critiqued the “precipitous decline” of a post-Elon X/Twitter as marking a shift towards a life online that values personal gain over the aimless enjoyment that many of us seek. Enshittification — the idea that a platform’s longevity is reliant on becoming less user-friendly and more money-orientated — began to gain traction after being coined by writer Cory Doctorow a few months before the New Yorker feature. The word summarises a grim consensus that we all operate as easy marks in the online spaces we use.

In this environment, delighting in the discovery of a more human pocket of the internet makes sense. Fragrance reviewing seems detached from the interests of a monolithic audience in the way that an inflammatory prompt tweet or a Mr Beast video definitely isn’t, as well as placing a higher value on the craftsmanship of the entertainment it brings. As with many niche hobbies and interests post-TikTok, the perfume community is not separate from the kind of content creation that is intertwined with the attention economy. It’s something proven in perfume’s most memeable influencer Jeremy Fragrance, more famous for his hyperactive monologues than his knowledge as the self-proclaimed “Number 1 Fragrance Expert”.

However, a place like the Fragrantica review section proves that the desire for a shared experience outside of social media platform advancements remains strong. Its greatest strength is that we don’t have the technology to smell through the screen. 

Words: Ally Dinning