Pro tip. Listen to a good vibe, while you enjoy a good read. Thank me later :-)
Which compliment would you rather? Would you rather someone come up to you and say "Your perfume smells so good?" Or "You always smell so good"? Each one is a compliment right. Both are similar to these two compliments-- "I love your make-up" vs "You are so beautiful". In both examples with the first compliment it's the product getting the compliment vs YOU getting the compliment. I mean let's face it any compliment, even those back handed sideways compliments can make your day. You know the one "You look so pretty today" Today? What about yesterday? Yeah that might sting a bit. Here's the important bit though. Out of any compliment you will get, only one will put an indelible imprint on someone for years without you ever saying a word. It's this one "You always smell so good". That's what you want.
First let's talk about what exactly is a signature Scent?
You know what before we do that let's talk about what it isn't. It's not in a bottle. It's not a trend. It's not status. It's not on sale at Macy's. Now here is the beginnings of what it is. It could be a brand, or within a brand only if the brand is authentic to it's message and soul. If it's some fake marketing trick to make money then no it won't be your signature scent. Most important your signature scent is real. It's authentic. It's uniquely you. Your signature scent can be one scent, or many scents. WAIT. SKIIIIIRRRRT What did you say? Many scents?! How can that even make sense. How can a signature scent be many scents? Well because a signature scent is not just a scent. It's a vibe. It's YOUR UNIQUE VIBE.
Huh? Explain!
Long ago I had lunch with a friend. It was actually a friend's brother who sadly my friends have absolutely no idea how brilliant he is. He sat me down and explained branding. What it was, and how important it was to a business. Although I don't have an MBA I'd read tons of books, gone to seminars, watched videos, and until that lunch I still couldn't get a handle on what exactly a brand was, and how it applied to a business. Wow I can't believe how long ago that was.
Skin Like Butter started kind of by accident. However, when I knew I was going to dedicate my life to it well I had to brand it. So when you are branding something you can either brand it organically and authentically. Or you can brand it to make money. That doesn't necessarily mean it will make money, but that's the intent. My point is you can follow your creative spirit and the brand will come from an authentic spiritual place. Or you can do research on data, find out what most people will like, and based on that data create a brand to appeal to the most people. You know what also appeals to the most people? Cafeteria food, and Gangnam Style. So yeah, let's just say I did absolutely no research at all when creating the Skin Like Butter brand.
That might have been a mistake because since Skin Like Butter has been off Etsy, not very many sales have been made. Nonetheless, I had to make a hard decision once the demise of the Etsy store happened (which then Skin Like Butter was a brand within a Brand) would I do research and find out what's trendy, find out what people liked, rebrand Skin Like Butter to fit the current trend, or keep the original brand that was true to the soul of Skin Like Butter? I went with the latter. Stay true to it's soul. Truth be told that isn't working out so well right now. Don't worry about that. I will keep getting more grey hairs about that lol. This is about you Here is the most important part of this paragraph and how it applies to you. The title doesn't say create your signature scent. It says FIND it. Discover it. However, before you discover your signature scent you have to discover your VIBE. I will show you how to do that in just a second. But first, in case you haven't guessed it. The Skin Like Butter brand is my VIBE. So now let's discover your VIBE.
So let's start with my VIBE
Oooh I don't know how people on social media reveal so much of themselves. Just full disclosure. This is so hard. So hats off to you guys. So yeah I'm going to use my VIBE as a way for you to discover your VIBE. So first take a look at this collage.
Do you see something common in every picture? See it yet? It's lines. More importantly clean lines. That's my vibe. Clean, elegant lines. I love that vibe in hairstyles, architecture, car design, fashion design, fonts, interior décor, art etc. Another example of this is people, men in particular, will often put women either in the Audrey (Audrey Hepburn) box, or the Marilyn (Marilyn Monroe) box. I would be in the Audrey box. Remember energy is consistent. So the same energy, in this case clean elegant lines, will consistently translate to the other senses as well. Your palette, your musical taste, and back to the topic your SCENT.
Since, as I stated before, the brand of Skin Like Butter is my VIBE. The scents are all clean, clear, and elegant. Even though they all smell totally different, the common denominator is that they are all clean, clear and elegant. It wouldn't matter if there were 10 scents, or 10,000 scents that wouldn't change. The best example of that would be Rose. I pick rose because the core of the Skin Like Butter brand is authentic single notes. So it has to actually smell like the real thing. It can't smell like the perfume version of the real thing. Lilac all smells the same. Although all Lilac body care doesn't smell the same and sometimes not even close to Lilac, the actual plant always smells the same. That is not the case with Rose. If you are lucky enough to visit the Huntington Library, in Pasadena California you will be able to see literally thousands of different types of Roses. You will know instantly that although they all smell like Rose, certain ones will smell different. The Skin Like Butter Rose is a very clean, very crisp, very elegant Rose. So not only is it an accurate authentic Rose, it's a Skin Like Butter Rose scent. Which was very hard to find by the way. So since Skin Like Butter's VIBE so to speak is clean, clear, and elegant, Dark Chocolate, Salted Caramel, Lavender Lemon, Exotic Coconut for example will all smell different from each other, BUT will all have the same consistent clean, clear, and elegant VIBE
Okay before I leave this part I want to make sure you get your collage finished. You have to start there. That will reveal kind of the bones of your vibe. The skeleton if you will. Grab a variety of things on google images. Packaging, cars, interior design, just different things, but make sure you really love the photo styling too, not just the item. Make sure it's both. If you put about 10 to 12 pictures in a collage your VIBE will appear. At least it should. Something should pop out.(um you know I might have used a better choice of words there, but lets continue). Alright so you've got your skeleton? Now let's put some meat on those bones.
Seasoning your VIBE
No matter where you are on this little blue globe we call home we have all been heavily influenced by the western world I would say since the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, even though your VIBE might be heavily influenced by western culture, you can't ignore your individual cultural influences as well when you're seasoning your VIBE. I'm American, born and raised in California. So my seasonings are going to be casual elegance, as opposed to traditional elegance. Clean lines, with a hip and trendy edge like Melrose, West LA, and Santa Monica. My mother was a very fancy southern belle. My dad loved the ocean and I would spend many Sundays with him on his boat as a kid. So I was raised pretty fancy (Debutant Ball, pledged a very girlie sorority, et all), so yeah part of my seasoning is very girlie. But remember still clean lines and edgy so think silk not taffeta. Last but not least two favorite cities in Cali- Laguna, and Santa Barbara. So the seasoning in your VIBE, the meat on your bones so to speak will be where you grew up and those influence's. So in my case sure all of the 150 Skin Like Butter scents are my VIBE because they are all clean, clear, and elegant underneath. Do I absolutely love all 150 scents? No. However there are 25 that are my core Signature Scent. They all smell vastly different, but cover all of those unique characteristics that I described above. Here are my signature scents that make up my Signature SCENT
- BABY'S BREATH
- BASIL BLISS
- CHAR
- CITRUS CILANTRO
- DRIFTWOOD
- EXOTIC COCONUT
- FIQUE
- GARDENIA
- GINGER ALE
- GRAPEFRUIT AND THYME
- HONEYSUCKLE TUBEROSE
- HONEYWOOD
- IPANEMA
- NECTARINE BLOSSOM
- ORANGE BLOSSOM
- ORANGE PATCHOULI
- PIKAKE
- PINK AMBER
- RED CURRANT
- SEA SALT
- TOOL BELT
- TUBEROSE
- VANILLA NOIR
- VANILLA ROSE
- VANILLA SUGAR
- VIOLET
These are my core scents, like the core pieces of your wardrobe. Now if you look at these scents, then look at the collage, read my VIBE seasonings they will match up pretty close. The scents will also match my wardrobe, hairstyle, interior design, etc. They match MY vibe. They collectively are my SIGNATURE SCENT.
Now lets put this concept to work.
Okay so did you do your collage? Check? Seasoned your VIBE? Check? Okay now let's put this into practice. So what's your VIBE? What's coming into focus? Well depending on where you are living the next step might prove a little difficult. You can't smell through the computer which is where there are endless fragrance options. If you are living in a small town the in person options where you can smell the fragrances is probably really limited. Even if you are in a big city it still might be a huge amount of the same choices. However, whether you're in a small town or a major city, you have at least 2 if not all three of these big fragrance brands. Even though they are brands and not people, brands have a vibe too. So if your collage might look like a mosaic mess, you can look at the collages of these brands and see which collage you gravitate to. This can be the beginnings of your signature scent journey. These are three collages representing the 3 the big brands in the mall. One starts with a B,. one starts with an L, one starts with a J. Guess which is which. Okay so I'm going to totally break the rules of marketing by taking you to someone else's brand, but I'm in teaching mode so here we go. First I want you to really take a minute and try to guess the brands. Then write down your answers. Now click on the photo to see if you guessed right. Now make sure you come back lol.
Alright you came back. Whew. You didn't spend all of your money did you? lol. Good. But see what I mean how all three have very distinct vibes. Also, if you click on
our home page you will see that it looks vastly different than Jo Malone, but has the same vibe. Hold on let me segue for a sec because this is important. Skin Like Butter and Jo Malone have the same vibe as far as fragrance signature and style, and somewhat the same branding, BUT not the product DNA. Jo Malone is LUXURY, Skin Like Butter is
fancy. It's like Lions and Tigers. Same animal class (BIG CATS), but different. So Jo Malone and
L'Occitane - LUXURY. Skin Like Butter and
Lollia,
Voluspa,
Thymes (Uh oh, did I loose some of you down the fancy rabbit hole? Come on back lol). For more information about
fancy you can read our blog post
fancy--discover the difference.
Oh I wish everyone was drawn to the bottom collage because everyone will love Skin Like Butter. If you haven't guessed it the Brand that starts with a J has the same vibe and brand philosophy as Skin Like Butter. However, we are all wired differently. So the truth is if you are drawn to the other two collages you will like Skin Like Butter, but you won't love it. We have dupes from all three brands but the dupes from the store that starts with a B, and the dupes from the store that start with an L are our renditions of them. So you might like them if you want a clearer, cleaner, more elegant version of them. Or you might like the original better. Also, out of the three brands they specialize in certain fragrance notes. The top one would be fruity and sweet, the middle one would be musky and earthy, and the last one is clear and clean. All three have little bits of the other but there is a predominance of one particular scent signature.
If you are drawn to the bottom collage YOU'RE GOING TO LOVE ALL THE DUPES. Not meaning you will love all of our scents, but let's say there was a particular scent from one of those stores. You liked it, but it wasn't quite all the way there. With OUR VERSION it will be all the way there. In fact our dupe from the store that starts with a J is her #1 seller, and our #1 seller too. We had it custom made to make sure it was perfect.
So hopefully now you know that your signature scent is not just one scent. However, it may well be the most important thing about you. Non-verbal communication is much louder than verbal communication. So tell YOUR story, not a products story. You are the jewel. Once you discover your VIBE keep it. Don't change it. Sometimes that's not as easy as it sounds. Always surround yourself with those who like your vibe. It's your tribe :-).
If you got this far thank you so much for reading. I hope this was informative. We can't give free samples to the entire free world, but as a token of our appreciation for you reading our blog of course if you'd like we would love to give you 3 free samples from our
scent library. You can't smell through the computer right. We just have a small request. Please contact us through the chat on the front of our page, let us know which scents you'd like to try, and the address to send them to. We are a very small company so we do have a limited amount we are able to send, so if we exceed the limit of free perfume samples, we also have other
perfume sample sets at a very reasonable price.
Thanks so much,
Alexandria
