New range of perfume takes unusual inspirationBy Pauline Diamond
EVER fancied dousing yourself in the smell of funeral homes, horse saddles or wet gardens when you are about to head out on the date of a lifetime?
Well, get ready for a new range of perfume set to grip Britain this year. Demeter Fragrance, from New York, is about to take off in Britain, and it has adopted a rather radical marketing strategy to get itself noticed in a crowded perfume market.
Rather than follow the traditional route of promising women the world in a bottle with exotic names like Eternity, Serenity and Euphoria, Demeter Fragrance has chosen to give its perfumes decidedly less hyperbolic titles.
Fancy smelling like Dirt? How about Turpentine, Rye Bread or even Clean Windows? The range of originally titled perfumes includes Dust, Wet Garden and Funeral Parlour. Or you can go for Fuzzy Navel, Condensed Milk, Dregs, Lobster, Snow, Paperback, Rubber, Waffles, Vinyl or Sushi.
The names are an extreme take on the actual fragrance itself. Funeral Home doesn't actually smell of grief and dead bodies but rather, the company says, it's "a blend of classic white flowers: lilies, carnations, gladioli, chrysanthemums with stems and leaves, with a hint of mahogany and oriental carpet".
Dirt, meanwhile, evokes ploughing time in Pennsylvania with the scent of "turned earth with a touch of last season's corn stalks".
"It's a fresh approach to scent," says company director Mark Crames. "A fragrance should make you smile every time you wear it. It should mean something special. Our perfumes are true-to-life fragrances which excite the senses and stir up great memories."
Current bestsellers include Laundromat, Gin And Tonic and Redhead In Bed, which sounds like quite a day. If you don't fancy those, there is always Bonfire, Earthworm or Lettuce.
Demeter's philosophy is that it wants to use the power of scent to evoke memories and use individual "single note" scents to capture the essence of moments in the wearer's life.
There's no perfume called Winter in Scotland yet but who's to say it wouldn't be a hit? Scottish Shortbread and Pipe Tobacco are already selling well.
Demeter is just starting to crack the UK market with the perfumes available in selected British stores and online, with an average bottle costing £10.
One avid US fan, Marilyn Connors from Illinois, said: "What first attracted me was the uniqueness of the brand. The first one that caught my eye was Funeral Parlour because of its strange name. Although I'm wearing Landromat today, actually. Funeral Home smelt woody and floral, not as you would expect from the kind of scary name.
"I also like Fresh Grass. It's cool the way they've been inspired by real smells but given them these kinky names. I've got a friend who, let's just say, is into leather so she is rather fond of Saddle.
"The strange names give it a certain cache, and it's certainly a conversation starter when you tell your friends that it's not Chanel you are wearing but Funeral Home. It's still not widely available even in the States, so it tends to be a small group of fans of the perfume who are buying it at the moment.
"I also like the way it's branding itself in a tongue-in-cheek way."
