Ratings Guide

The ratings guide

What the numbers on our listings actually mean.

Every product on this site carries two scores out of ten and a set of star ratings. Here is exactly what each one measures, how we arrive at it, and where you should ignore us entirely.

First, the important part

These are not customer reviews.

Our ratings are our own editorial assessment. They are not an average of customer scores, they are not laboratory measurements, and nobody pays for a higher number.

We are saying this first because a score out of ten on a retail page usually means a review average, and ours does not. Customer reviews live separately on the site and are written by people who bought the bottle. The ratings described on this page are our opinion, informed by having bought, sold and smelled fragrance since 1998.

That makes them useful in a specific way and useless in another. They are useful for comparing bottles against each other on a consistent scale, because the same people applied the same standard across the catalogue. They are useless as a prediction of whether you will like something, because we are not you and fragrance is the most personal thing we sell.

We would rather you treat a rating as a starting point for a conversation than as a verdict. If a number surprises you, call us and ask why.

The two scores

Compliment Factor and Enthusiast Factor.

Two numbers, because there are two different questions people ask, and a single score forces them into one answer that serves neither.

Scored out of 10

Compliment Factor™

How likely other people are to notice it and say something. This measures broad appeal, not quality. Sweet, warm and immediately likeable fragrances score high here because most noses respond to them without having to think.

High score means
Crowd-pleasing, easy to like, safe to wear around people who are not fragrance people. Good for a first bottle, a gift, or a night out.
Low score does not mean bad
Many of the most interesting fragrances ever made score modestly here. Quiet, strange or challenging scents are not designed to get stopped in the street.
Scored out of 10

Enthusiast Factor™

How a fragrance is regarded by people who take the subject seriously. Composition, quality of materials, originality, and its standing among collectors and the wider fragrance community.

High score means
Well made, well regarded, often influential. The kind of bottle that rewards paying attention to it as it develops on skin.
Low score does not mean bad
Plenty of genuinely enjoyable fragrances are unoriginal, and that is fine. A crowd-pleaser that scores modestly here may still be the right bottle for you.

The gap between the two tells you the most. A high Compliment Factor with a modest Enthusiast Factor is a fragrance that works on people rather than on connoisseurs, which is often exactly what someone wants. The reverse, high Enthusiast and modest Compliment, is a bottle for your own enjoyment that may go entirely unremarked by everyone around you. Neither is better. They are different purchases, and knowing which one you are making is the point of having two numbers.

Performance

What each star is worth.

Stars mean nothing unless somebody tells you what they are anchored to. Here is our scale, in hours and metres, so you can translate a rating into something real.

Longevity

How long the fragrance remains detectable on skin. Measured on normal skin in temperate conditions. Dry skin will run shorter, and fabric will hold a scent far longer than skin does.

Under 2 hours. You will be reapplying, and that is by design in the lightest formats.
2 to 4 hours. Half a working day. Common in citrus and aquatic compositions.
4 to 6 hours. The typical designer eau de toilette. Fine for a day out, gone by dinner.
6 to 9 hours. A full day from morning to evening without a top-up.
9 hours or more. Still there at bedtime, and usually still on your shirt tomorrow.

Projection

How far the scent carries from your body in the first couple of hours, when it is at its strongest. This is the measure most people actually mean when they say a fragrance is strong.

Skin scent. Detectable only by someone very close to you. Intimate by design.
Arm's length. Noticed in conversation, not across a desk.
A metre or so. Present in a room without dominating it. The office-safe range.
Several metres. People notice when you walk in. Go lighter on application.
Fills the room. One or two sprays is genuinely enough. Three is a decision you are making about everyone else.

Sillage

Pronounced see-yazh. The trail a fragrance leaves behind you after you have moved on. Projection is the bubble around you now. Sillage is what lingers in the doorway. A fragrance can have one without the other.

None. Nothing left behind. Stays entirely on you.
Faint. A brief trace in a small space, gone quickly.
Noticeable. Someone entering shortly after you would catch it.
Strong. A clear trail down a corridor or through a lift.
Announcing. The room knows where you have been. Wonderful or unbearable, depending entirely on the room.
Occasion and season

Fit, not quality.

  • Best For

    Office, date night, wedding, everyday, evening and vacation, each rated out of five. These measure appropriateness rather than how good a fragrance is. A five-star evening scent and a two-star office scent are frequently the same bottle, and that is not a contradiction. What reads as magnetic at dinner reads as inconsiderate in a meeting room. Read these as a fit score for a setting, never as a judgement of the fragrance.

  • Best Seasons

    Heat is the single biggest variable in how a fragrance behaves. Warmth amplifies sweetness, resins and animalic notes while burning off citrus and fresh accords faster. The same bottle can feel perfectly judged in November and overwhelming in August. Where a fragrance scores high across all four seasons, that is a genuine versatility signal and usually the mark of a good first purchase.

  • Fragrance Profile and Verdict

    The family and the note pyramid are factual, taken from the composition as published by the house. The written verdict at the end of each listing is our summary of who a bottle suits and when to wear it. If you want to understand what the notes themselves smell like, that is covered properly in scent families and notes.

Methodology

Where the numbers come from.

Ratings are assigned in-house by our team, drawing on wearing the fragrances ourselves and on the wider consensus among fragrance communities and reviewers.

Performance ratings, longevity, projection and sillage, are based on the fragrance as worn on skin and are calibrated to the scale set out above so that a three-star rating means the same thing on every product in the catalogue. Compliment and Enthusiast Factors combine our own assessment with how a fragrance is regarded more broadly, since reputation is part of what those two scores are trying to capture.

What does not influence a rating: our margin on a bottle, how much stock we are holding, whether something is on offer, or any payment from a brand. We do not accept payment for placement or scores. If we were willing to inflate a number to move stock, every other number on the site would be worthless, and the numbers are the reason anyone would trust the listings.

Ratings are reviewed as we go and can change, particularly where a house reformulates a fragrance, which happens more often than the industry admits.

Where to ignore us

Four honest limitations.

  • Your skin will disagree with our numbers.

    Skin chemistry genuinely changes how a fragrance performs. Dry skin holds scent poorly and can cut two or three hours off any longevity rating. Warmer skin amplifies projection. A four-star longevity on our scale can behave like a two-star on you, and nothing is wrong with either the bottle or the rating.

  • You may not be able to smell it.

    A meaningful proportion of people cannot detect certain synthetic musks at all, and musks sit in the base of an enormous number of modern fragrances. If a highly rated scent seems to vanish on you within the hour while everyone else says it is strong, this is very likely why, and it is worth knowing before you blame the bottle.

  • Taste is not a score.

    A nine out of ten you dislike is worth less to you than a six you love. Our numbers describe how a fragrance behaves and how it is received, not whether it belongs on your shelf. Use them to narrow a list, never to settle it.

  • Reformulation moves the target.

    Houses quietly change formulas, usually because a material has become restricted or expensive. Oakmoss is the best known example. A fragrance you loved a decade ago may not be the fragrance in the bottle today, and our rating describes the current version as we have smelled it, not the one in your memory.

In practice

How to actually use them.

Buying a gift? Lead with Compliment Factor and the Best For rating for the occasion. You want broad appeal, not a challenging masterpiece.

Buying for yourself and you already know what you like? Lead with Enthusiast Factor and the note profile. Compliment Factor is close to irrelevant if you are wearing it for your own pleasure.

Buying for the office? Look at projection and sillage before anything else. Three stars or fewer on both. Longevity matters less than you think, because reapplying is easy and annoying a colleague is not reversible.

Buying your first serious bottle? Look for high scores across all four seasons and a mid-range projection. Versatility beats intensity when you only own one.

Scent families and notes · Concentrations explained · (213) 255-5918

Numbers we will stand behind.

Every listing rated on the same scale, by people who have been smelling this catalogue since 1998.

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