Celebrity campaigns, desert shoots and the occasional lion. Here’s what you’re really paying for, and what you could be paying for instead.
With all the smoke and mirrors in the perfume world, it’s a wonder anyone can smell anything properly. At BEAUTY PIE, we’re here to clear the air.
The modern perfume industry is very good at selling us everything except the perfume.
The billboards in LA. The parties in Paris. Johnny Depp looking enigmatic in a desert. Charlize Theron grappling with a lion. The elaborate business of making a fragrance feel like an object of almost unattainable desire.
And increasingly, we're paying for it.
Luxury perfume prices have climbed sharply in recent years, with rising ingredient costs, tariffs and increasingly extravagant marketing budgets all playing their part. The Hollywood A-listers, the megastar creative teams, the far-flung locations. None of it comes cheap. And ultimately, it all ends up in the price of the bottle.
Which raises an interesting question. What if you could have the extraordinary perfume, without paying for the extraordinary production surrounding it?
It all depends what you think is worth paying for. At BEAUTY PIE, that's exactly what we've been doing since we introduced perfume into our line-up eight years ago. Working with some of the world's most talented perfumers, making beautiful fine fragrances in Grasse, France, the historic heart of French perfumery, and selling every single one for less than £40 for BEAUTY PIE members.
Take Frank Voelkl.
If you know your fragrance, you'll almost certainly know his work. He's the nose behind Glossier You, many of Le Labo's most celebrated original scents, including Santal 33, Musc 25, Ylang 49 and Iris 39 and the recent cult hit, Phlur Missing Person. In other words, the man responsible for some of the most talked-about fragrances of the past two decades also makes perfume for BEAUTY PIE.
His Brazilian Lime, Fig Leaves & Tea is a great example: right, zesty and uplifting, but with a sophistication that stops it tipping into conventional citrus territory. It's a scent that feels both effortlessly fresh and surprisingly expensive.
He also created our original Love fragrance, and its newer incarnation, Love The Remix, which pulls off another interesting balancing act. Complex and full-bodied, but with a lightness and modernity that makes it exceptionally wearable.
Fragrance should make you happy. (Overpaying should not).
Voelkl has said his ambition is "to craft scents that will elicit pure, unadulterated happiness." Which, when you think about it, is a rather better starting point for a perfume than the availability of a Hollywood megastar.
And he's not the only extraordinary nose in our address book.
Coralie Spicher, who has created fragrances for Kenzo, Jean Paul Gaultier and Maison Martin Margiela, is the talent behind our much-loved Le Smash Santal. Sandalwood fragrances can sometimes be a little predictable. This one isn't. Spicher takes the creamy richness of sandalwood and gives it an intriguing softness, with delicate almond powder and tea leaves, touches of tonka bean and lavender, and a base of musk and white suede. It's warm, sophisticated and beautifully balanced, with enough character to stand apart from the sandalwood crowd.
She also created Orris Florentina, a very different fragrance with a similarly interesting interplay of strength and softness. Here, the star is Tuscan orris, prized for its complex, earthy character. Bergamot and blood orange bring freshness, while incense and tonka bean give it depth and warmth. The result is elegant, distinctive and full of personality.
Our fragrances come in beautiful, weighty glass bottles, and many have matching body washes and body crèmes. They look and feel like the real luxury articles they are.
The difference is what you're not paying for.
Not the desert. Not the lion. Not the billboard.
Just the work of some of the world's finest perfumers, and the masterpieces they put inside the bottle.
